My 10 golden Rules in Project Management
My 10 golden Rules in Project Management
During my work, I had to manage a lot of different projects and I also worked with a huge amount of Project managers. I also went through the the Prince2 Practioneer education and certification.
On one Day I started to create my personal golden Rules for Project Management.
These are my rules:
1. Save the Humanity
If you loose you people you will loose you project… So always take care of your people!
effectiveness and being productive is good, but humanity is more important!
2. Personal Communication is first choice
If you have to communicate something, always communicate it in direct personal way, avoid E-Mails, if possible… if personal eye-to-eye communication is not possible, then use a phone an communicate it… E-Mails should always be last choice!
3. Never underestimate the power of stakeholders
stakeholders can make you fail and they can also make you win, so always be aware of stakeholders. Create a list of your stakeholders and group them and investigate their intention
… “Get the right people on the bus, the wrong people off the bus, and the right people in the right seats.” 🙂
4. SMART GOALS
There is nothing worse then, shooting on a target that will constantly move… You will never hit it! You have to set specific Goals, these goals need to be documented, the need to be measurable, they need to be achievable (don’t set your goals to high!), they need to be relevant and they need to be timetable.
Non specific Goals are the number one reason for failing projects in my eyes!
5. Reporting means Freedom
If you are stuck in your project or if you experience problems or issues in you project, be aware of the effort you invest to solve them by your own… small problems can bring the whole project to fall… So, Report your issues to your steering committee… You don’t have to carry this project on your own, the whole steering committee has to carry it, and they have to support you!
6. State of the Art: Project Marketing
Project marketing, curse or blessing?! In German, we say: Do something that is good and then speak about that and communicate it… but the problem is, that you have different kind of receivers of information’s, if you involve people in your activities, they could get bored from your information’s or they even can get envious… (like: wtf?! Who the hell are you, with your important project… J… mr big business and so an yah yah!) or they could also just ignore you, like: I could not care less about your f**** project… just go and die! 🙂
So, this is one more good reason for a register of stakeholders!
There is no golden rule for project marketing… Project Marketing should be align with your stakeholder register…If your project marketing is too less, no one noticed the project and if you are doing too much project marketing the people will get bored or even annoyed…
So in terms of making your project a success:
… “Get the right people on the bus, the wrong people off the bus” 🙂
Sounds hard, but basically it is important…
7. Who is your audience?!
Always be aware of your audience! This again requires a register of all your stakeholders!
Highly aware of the set of information’s you give to your current audience… not only the content of you information’s need to be compatible to your audience also the way on how you deliver them (small example: being technical with a technician and being high-level with someone from the Business or Management)
8. Stick to the roles
Well, in times of “agile” the organisational structure is not important… But you need to be aware of the different roles in your project structure… a project is a product of teamwork, you cannot fulfil every single role on your own… steering yourself for example you cannot be part of the steering committee and also being the project manager…
Don’t hesitate to speak about it, if someone is not fulfilling his role or the responsibilities of his role… well, speak about it humanly! Don’t blame him in front of the a big audience! 🙂
9. What is your Main goal?! Adjust your aiming for it…
Never lose your eyes of your smart Goals! Adjust your course on a regular base, don’t spent too much efforts on things you really like! Apply the Pareto principle, too much perfection on small things can result in loosing too much time on small details, which in total will lead into a huge delay on achieving the main goal…
10. Avoid different levels of Information to all levels
Again stakeholder register! A different level of specific information’s on stakeholders can lead into a huge confusion on your stakeholders… well, sometimes you have to be careful with information’s… because you definitely have to deal with some information’s, which should not get to some people… But there will also be information’s which are relevant for every single person or stakeholder, sometimes you need some kind of information grid… (a mix of a stakeholder register and a register of information’s)
