Your Guide to Project Management Best Practices

Category: How-to Guides

project-failure-how-to-fail-a-project

How-to Guides

How to Fail a Project, or What You Shouldn’t Do When Managing Your Project

Most people involved in planning and managing projects often do not realize why they fail with their projects because they have no idea of project management failures and common reasons for project failure. Do you want to know why you failed with your last project? In this quick review I will tell you about the most frequent project management failures and also teach you how to fail with a project. Why do you need to teach you this? The answer is that I believe a person will get more chances to succeed in project management & planning if he or she is aware of what SHOULD NOT be done within their projects. I hope that through teaching you to fail projects and showing you project management failure examples you will better understand how to achieve project management success and not to do all those wrong things that many project managers and planners do.

project initiation glag

How-to Guides

How to Initiate Projects Successfully (Part II)

When the project is defined and the project chart is developed, it is time to acquire and assign the team. At this step of the project initiating phase, the project board is to be established and the project manager is to take responsibility for acquiring the project team and assigning it to project tasks and activities. The project manager needs to recruit the team leader(s) who will assist the project manager in initiating project by selecting and recruiting required project staff (members of the project team). The team leaders take responsibility for making team assignments and the project manager approves these assignments.

During the project initiating phase, the core activity for making right team assignments refers to developing job descriptions. A project job description is a formal project initiating document that states and explains what project roles are required to complete the project work and produce the deliverables, what targets each role is assigned to, and how to measure the targets and to access the performance of each role. Every team member should be assigned to a detailed project job description which defines personal role and responsibilities within the project. When initiating project and developing project roles, the team leaders need to consider the project initiating documents (Project Charter, Feasibility Study).

project initiation phase

How-to Guides

How to Initiate Projects Successfully (Part I)

A recent study conducted by the competent US agencies specializing in project initiation researches has shown that a large percentage of projects [of any kinds] are dismissed before they even reach the planning phase. The study investigates that the most common reason of project initiation phase failure refers to improper definition of project scope which results in the lack of sponsorship and investments required to ensure success of those projects. Therefore, it’s critical to understand the importance of the project initiation phase and know which steps can be taken to successfully go through this phase and initiate your projects as quickly and efficiently as possible.

how to achieve project goals

How-to Guides

How to Set and Achieve Goals of a Project

Many people involved in managing projects and setting project goals face one and the same difficulty that refers to proper goal setting and achieving. The difficulty is that people cannot realize what things within the project are really important; they may also have weak motivation goals; they do not plan for future activities and cannot forecast; they do not understand the importance of setting measurable goals of project; etc. The list of reasons for improper project goals setting can be supplemented with other reasons. If you want to learn how to set project goals properly in accordance with your expectations and how to achieve project management goals within expected deadlines, then read this interesting article.