Here are some handy checklists to have when starting or managing a project.
This page is really a starting point for a lot of mangement stuff, I imagine this will eventually go somewhere in my wiki and grow over time.
Vision
- Is there a clear picture of what success looks like?
- Can you express this in words/picture/video?
Goals
- Are goals SMART? (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, time-bound)
- How will goals be evaluated?
- How will goals be reviewed?
- What is the impact of failing to achieve a goal?
- Who proposes, evaluates or approves goals?
- How will you control scope?
- What are the non-functional goals (time/resource/quality)?
Specifications
- What are the business requirements? What do sponsors need?
- What are the user requirements? What do they need to do?
- What are the technical requirements? What constrains design and implementation choices? What needs to happen?
Resources
- What teams or individuals will be working on this project? What is the priority of this project relative to others they might have?
- What kind of specialized expertise do you need on this project? Who can provide that?
- What is the maximum degree-of-parallelism you could have?
Work Breakdown Structure (WBS)
- What are the deliverables for the project? How do they ladder up?
- What are the activities that ladder up to those WBS items?
- Does every item have an owner and timeline? (you'll need to figure out schedule before timeline)
- Does every decomposed item include all its decomposed items?
Scheduling
- When will each of your activities take place? What are the dependencies?
- What milestones can you identify? What are your go/no-go points? Where/when will you assess product and project progress?
- What is the critical path in the project?
Quality
- What will you measure to assess quality? How will you measure it?
- What tolerances do you have?
- What benchmarks can you use to base your goals on?
- How will you visualize and communicate about quality? What audiences need to consume this information and what do they do with it?
Decisions
- How is the need for a decision raised?
- How will a decision be made?
Communications
- How do team members share information amongst themselves?
- How are project updates shared?
- Who needs information about the project, and what do they need to do with that information?
- What communication is best done live vs recorded/asynchronous?
- Can you design a template for consistency over time for regular updates?
- What do you need to share about the product and what do you need to share about the project?
Processes
- How will team members share information and update product and project status?
- How will risks be identified, surfaced and addressed? How will you evaluate them? What can you avoid/mitigate/transfer/accept?
- How will you manage requests for change to the project?
Happy project management!
Tags:
checklist management
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