Whether you’re managing people or tasks, management is never easy. From coordinating teams to executing tasks, it demands a lot from managers. Many of us have experienced this firsthand in our careers. Starting a new project can feel like embarking on an unknown journey. To-do lists grow endlessly, departments operate with varying workflows, and both superiors and clients have their own demands and expectations.So, how do you plan, prioritize, and overcome these challenges to successfully execute a project?
The Project Management Institute (PMI) has developed the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK®) Guide, which defines project management processes into five key steps: initiating, planning, executing, monitoring and controlling, and closing. This guide aims to help knowledge workers improve their project management knowledge and skills.
Source: Asana
1. Project Initiation: Defining the Complete Blueprint and Broad Objectives
The first step in any project is to create a blueprint and define the objectives. Begin by analyzing the project’s stakeholders. Who is responsible for the project? Who are the key team members? Which departments need to collaborate? What level of management needs to review the team’s progress? Through meetings, you can understand other departments’ timelines and whether they can allocate resources to the project. Sufficient cross-team communication can facilitate future project collaboration. In addition to understanding the stakeholders and collaborating departments, it’s important to assess the overall project’s benefits, costs, and risks. For a company, costs and benefits should be proportional. Understanding the potential difficulties during project execution can provide a more solid foundation for the project. Once information is collected and organized, the team will have a clearer understanding of the project’s goals, budget, and timeline, and a clear vision of the project’s future direction.
2. Project Planning: Strategies and Paths to Achieve Goals
Project planning is a critical stage. Different strategies should be used based on team characteristics. Here are three strategies for reference:
- SMART Principle: SMART stands for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound. The SMART principle is widely accepted in the workplace and academia because it is both reasonable and considers many potential external constraints. However, some people believe that the SMART principle is less flexible and not suitable for highly variable environments. It is recommended for smaller projects with more specific details.
- CLEAR Principle: CLEAR stands for Collaborative, Limited, Emotional, Appreciable, and Refinable. This principle is considered more agile than SMART, especially the “Refinable” aspect, which gives goal setters flexibility. When goals are not achieved as expected or the direction is incorrect, adjustments can be made rather than pursuing unattainable goals.
- Objectives and Key Results (OKRs): Unlike traditional Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), OKRs emphasize the relationship between objectives and results. OKRs are simple and flexible, clearly outlining the expected results after setting goals. They are quick to set and easy to extend, as the emphasis on relationships can stimulate cross-departmental collaboration involved in achieving goals.
After selecting a goal-setting principle, you can use these principles to plan strategic goals and execution plans. The execution plan is the path to achieving the goal, like “when” and “what” should I start doing to “achieve something”? Gantt charts, which clearly control progress, and milestone charts, which show key project timelines, are powerful elements of execution plans. For example, in Asana, you can create a project and list the content and time of tasks in the plan. Tasks can be categorized by sections or milestones. Asana provides various viewing templates that will automatically generate other viewing formats after entering the necessary information, such as Gantt charts and milestone charts, allowing you to see the project at a glance.us viewing templates that will automatically generate other viewing formats after entering the necessary information, such as Gantt charts and milestone charts, allowing you to see the project at a glance.
Source: Asana
3. Project Execution: Turning Plans into Action
After collecting sufficient information in the previous two steps, it’s time to put the plan into action. In Asana, you can assign responsible persons to individual tasks and subtasks. Responsible persons will receive task reminders and project-related notifications. Team members can organize all task-related data in one place and discuss them on a single platform, preventing information from being scattered and simplifying communication. The different viewing templates mentioned in the previous step can also effectively visualize the project’s steps during the execution phase. At the same time, team managers can control the progress of each task in Asana and understand the workload of team members.
In cross-departmental projects, tasks are often interconnected. By setting dependencies, if the deadline of a task is delayed, subsequent tasks can be automatically updated. It should be noted that while project progress will fluctuate and adjustments need to be made to maintain flexibility, it is still important to adhere to the original schedule as much as possible.
4. Project Performance: Returning to Initial Goals and Careful Evaluation
The most fundamental aspect of evaluating a project’s performance is whether it has achieved the initial goals set in the first step. Does the current project execution truly solve the initial problem? In addition to achieving the initial goals, return on investment (ROI), cost performance index (CPI), planned value (PV), actual cost (AC), and earned value (EV) are common evaluation criteria and key performance indicators (KPIs).
After careful evaluation, it is equally important to communicate internally. Internally, you should review with team members what was done well and what was not during the project execution process. What difficulties were encountered that caused the project to stall or bottleneck? Do we need more resources or support in future executions?
Source: Asana
5. Project Closure: Providing a Proper Explanation Externally and Conducting a Thorough Review Internally
When a project is about to conclude, it is necessary to wrap up both internally and externally. Externally, a closing meeting should be held to explain the project’s results to stakeholders, defining the project’s success or failure based on actual results and allowing stakeholders to ask questions about the project’s performance. Internally, a closing meeting should also be planned. Unlike the previous step, an anonymous survey can be conducted before the closing meeting to allow all team members to express their opinions and reflect on the project.
Continuing to track and monitor after project closure is an often overlooked but very important aspect. Projects don’t just end when they are closed. “Every Contact Leaves a Trace.” Teams should learn and evolve from this project, continuously testing and discovering new ways to improve projects.
Conclusion
Whether an organization is large or small, project management is an inevitable challenge. By following these five steps outlined by the Project Management Institute, knowledge workers can quickly learn project management skills and effectively manage projects. Effective project management can enhance team collaboration and stakeholder engagement, strategically allocate resources and manage plans, effectively execute, control project progress, and give projects more meaning and potential value.
In addition to project management knowledge, powerful auxiliary tools are also key to team success. Asana is a very simple and easy-to-use project management tool with a clean interface and is perfect for cross-departmental communication. It has also added AI-assisted features to make project management even smarter! Contact Master Concept’s professional consultants to activate your company’s free 30-day trial!
Adapted from Asana’s “5 project management phases to improve your team’s workflow“
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