Following are few tips, which can be of help for the people who have newly become Project Managers for a project. To become a successful Project Manager, one should:
- LEARN and keep learning. You are at the bottom of a long learning curve. Hopefully you haven't been forced into running a project completely out of your depth, so look for every learning opportunity you can and continue to do so for the rest of your career.
- Focus on the 20% of effort for 80% of results and let the final 20% of results look after themselves.
- Identify who the customer(s) of your Project is and who in management is overseeing it. They are likely to have two different sets of expectations for the Project's outcome, what are they and where are the potential conflicts?
- Define what will make the project successful for management and customer - in measurable terms.
- Do a feasibility study to prove that the Project is achievable and desirable to customer and management, outcome, dollar and time wise.
- Get approval to proceed and complete a detailed plan of what has to be done to achieve the successful outcome defined above.
- Negotiate for the resources you need to succeed.
- Monitor the work done closely, measuring progress and quality as you go.
- Once the work has finished, prove the project has been successful using the measurable criteria defined above.
- Learn any lessons that needed to be learnt and celebrate - success breeds success.
- To make mistakes once is to learn valuable lessons. To repeat mistakes is stupid.
- Keep trying to learn. Get and give as much training as possible. If a manager says "But what if we train them and they leave?" Your reply should be "What if they don't learn and they stay?"
