A Simple Recipe For Creating A Killer Project Management Checklist
How to create one small checklist to save you a tonne of effort.
“In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable.” — Dwight D.Eisenhower.
I am a big fan of lists, to-do lists, pros and cons lists, or checklists. They give me a chance to be thorough, not miss out on important information, and also finish everything up in the intended time.
But I was a rookie when I started, and the lists I was initially making did not help anybody.
And I soon realized it was because I was:
- Working solo.
- Not taking the aspect of time into account.
- Not using any planning tools.
- Conducting meetings that fulfilled no agenda.
- Taking no heed of the possibility that something (or many things) could go wrong.
If we talk about the challenges with making a perfect project management checklist, I have noticed that the biggest one is that we keep weighing the outcomes and discussing the benefits and forget to pan out the steps that will help us get there.
Interestingly enough, the only time lost in the process of achieving project management goals is when we keep thinking of ideas but never get around to sit, jot them down and implement them to fruition.
But this could be an endless loop!
You could go around in circles and never reach the desired outcomes. It is time to break the cycle. You need to sit with your team and analyze the: Why we need to do it and why we need to do it now?
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And, when you’re done with all of that, you may move on to make an amazing checklist for project management which will have the following 11 pointers:
1. Compare Expectations With Resources
The first addition to the perfect project management checklist is that you weigh the expectations and the resources you have.
When your expectations and main aim is clear, you need to determine the full scope of the project and its end results. For this you need to have your whole team pitch in to:
Analyze the accomplishments:
- What will the clients accomplish?
- What will the brand accomplish?
- What will the team accomplish?
- How high can the numbers go?
After the expectations and the aims are clear, we can move on to estimating what we already have and, consequently, what we would be needing. And, for this you need to:
- Determine your establishment’s financial position to find what is needed and what can be spared.
- Deliberate and decide on how much workforce you have to delegate responsibilities. We do this to determine how many new people would have to be brought in.
- Determine the organizational assets of products, infrastructure, devices, and tools you would be needing.
Make a to-do list for what you will need to add to your resources for the project to run its course smoothly.
2. Pan Out A Strategy
So now you know what you want, what you have, and what you need. We’re right on track. The next step is to pan out a strategy to reach said goals. Now for that, all you need to do is follow a good project management technique.
Now for that, all you need to do is write down the answers to the question: Which project management technique will work best for your project?
Selecting a technique/approach to manage your project will help you find the most efficient path to reach your goals.
Here are some examples of some project management techniques you could consider applying to your project:
- Agile methodology,
- Critical chain methodology,
- Scrum, and
- Waterfall.
Map out your strategy based on what has and hasn’t worked for you in the past. And, once you start following a certain project management technique, we are good to go!
3. Break The Strategy Into Doable Tasks
Now that we have a strategy let us convert our pathway into a series of tasks. For this you must:
- Take the strategy and break in down such that you have numerous, smaller goals.
- Now the number of activities on the path leading up to these goals will be your tasks.
- Now take these tasks and break them down into subtasks.
So, for example, if your project management checklist is for baking a cake, these are your set of tasks and subtasks leading up to it:
TASK 1: Shopping
- Go to the store and buy chocolate, sugar, and flour.
- Buy milk and cream from the dairy.
- Get eggs from the farm.
TASK 2: Prepare the oven
- Level the shelves of the oven.
- Set the temperature and leave to preheat.
TASK 3: Prepare batter
- Measure the ingredients.
- Mix the ingredients.
- Add milk.
- Whisk away.
After you are done setting up a list of tasks and subtasks, you must define a workflow.
WHAT ARE WORKFLOWS?
A workflow is a series of steps/stages that a task passes through before completion. It is a way for a team to work collaboratively on the same task when it is their stage to provide input.
This would be helpful to you in the following ways:
- It will save you time.
- It will help the team prevent confusion.
- The project runs smoothly.
- The team can work with harmony.
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4. Test And Iterate
Your team will never waver about the task at hand and stick to the plan as intended if they know they are doing the right thing. Determine if your actions are taking you in the right direction.
“If you don’t know where you are going, you’ll end up someplace else.” ― Yogi Berra, former New York Yankees catcher
The direction of the project becomes more apparent when we test the process. And, it is, consequently, fixed when we make revisions.
Here is what you need to do for the testing part:
- Run scenarios on your strategies, how the tasks will play out to give the best outcome in the least amount of time.
- Do a lap of test runs on the workflows and the sequence of tasks that you think would suit best to the project.
After the testing part, you will know what you need to revise. And when you revise, make sure to determine:
- How rigid we can be with the plan.
- How much room for flexibility can be allowed?
- What is the tone for the project? (urgent/liberal)
When you find that out, you can finally set the pace of the projects can determine the:
5. Timeline And The Deadlines
You would see that you have a list of tasks, a workflow, a direction, and a strategy. So we started with nothing but, now we are getting somewhere with this project management checklist. All you need to know is when to start!
You are now at the stage where you establish the date when you begin and the date when you will have the outcome. In fact, there are a lot of time-related things you need to define at this point.
Here are the steps you need to follow:
- Define the timeline of the project.
- Divide the time taken by every task.
- Begin setting deadlines for every task leading up to the main goal.
- Select the checkpoints to place goals.
- And then, define the smaller, more frequent checkpoints for the milestones.
6. Establish the Hierarchy
An important aspect of a project management checklist would be to define the structural hierarchy.
Define a chain of command for your project because it will help you:
- Establish who reports to whom.
- Reduce the chances of chaos in the future.
- Give substance to the plan.
- Distribute responsibilities better.
- Make the feedback process easier.
- Incorporate accountability in the team.
A project management software like ProofHub will allow you to set custom roles so that everyone is clear about responsibilities and the way they fit into the project.
7. Distribute Information
Now, we have established as much detail as we could so we can finally start to bring the whole team and every department into the loop.
Find a way to effectively state:
- The scope of the project.
- The amount of work to be done before they collectively reach the goal.
- The tasks leading up to the milestones.
- Their individual tasks.
- The timeline of the project and the deadlines.
Doing this is important so that the employees can start to envision their specific contribution to the project and also start making tweaks to their routines accordingly.
8. Communications & Collaboration
The next step in your project management checklist is that of maintaining connections because a broken link in the chain will derail your whole project.
It is essential before you bring the project into motion that you establish channels for communication.
“Communication works for those who work at it.” — John Powell
Now considering this, we know that communication surrounding the project can only be about:
- Catching up/reporting progress.
- Asking to review work.
- Giving feedback.
Well, there are tools to automate all these processes. Investing in tools is exactly what it sounds like: It is an INVESTMENT.
If you haven’t automated your communication processes yet, here is what you are missing:
- There are reporting tools to create automated reports and share them in an instant.
- Back and forth communication can be handled with a software platform that is adept to chats and instant messaging.
- And, this is a big one, there are tools for feedback that can help you keep your point forward in a more illustrative way and make the reviewing process easier.
OR
You could get a project management tool that can help you do all three under one roof. ProofHub is one such software that allows you to report, communicate through chats and group chats, and review work through annotation with proofing tools.
9. Establish A Way To Track Progress
Just like a machine needs regular oiling, a project plan also needs constant reinforcements. But to determine if your project needs these reinforcements, you need to know if and when it needs them at all. Supervision is important.
What will be your solution to tracking so many variables? End-of-the-week meetings are great, but let us be honest, meetings have gotten pretty primitive.
Use a tracking tool to solve all these problems relating to:
- Tracking the status of resources.
- Comparing progress from different weeks.
- Tracking time taken by the team on a particular task.
- Tracking where the project progress has reached corresponding to the timeline
- Calculating the exact hours that people spend working on the project.
- Determining billable hours for payroll.
Great! Now you have an effective way to review how the project is progressing!
ProofHub is a project management tool that allows you to put time tracking to use in countless ways. With the features of reporting, timesheets, timers, and reminders, our tool always helps teams compete with time. Check out ProofHub review.
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10. How to deal with risk management
“Anything that can go wrong will go wrong” — Murphy’s law.
A contingency plan is a must-have ingredient in a perfect project management checklist.
A study says that only 30% of all projects deliver on the planned budget while only 15% are delivered on time. — A compelling reason for having a plan for everything that could even remotely go wrong in your project.
You must have a fallback plan for the following occurrences:
- Delay in deadlines.
- Running out of resources.
- An employee leaving the team.
11. Work Out The Budget
Budgeting is something you cannot shy away from talking about. It is a critical addition to this checklist for project management.
The best way to stick to a budget is to manage expenses.
Here are the things you need to pay attention to while you map out the budget for your project:
- Routine expenses.
- Overhead and admin expenses.
- Equipment costs and cost of tools.
- Emergency funds.
With all these details, you also need a way to track resources as well as the budget situation.
Project management tools like ProofHub can help a lot with managing, tracking resources, and also allocating them with a highly customizable interface.
Wrapping Up
Determine your needs and establish your goals to reach the best outcome in the shortest time frame possible. With a well-structured and very thorough checklist, like the one we just worked with, you are sure to accomplish everything just the way you envisioned.
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