Without a doubt, the start of the project is what you want to make it ritght, if you do right it will cost you less in the end, everyone knows that it is much easier to correct your mistakes in the beginning.
If you do a lot of projects, you definately do a lot repetitive starts of new projects and you most likely have a plan to run all the routine preparations before the actual work begins. This involves many things like planning resources, budgeting, infrastructure, involving team, as well as managing and communicating requirements. I can bet, it’s a common thing you forget something, because it is impossible to remember everything, especially if your head is filled with planning and stuff, and then start making some corrections in the middle of the project, thus shifting the milestones, worrying your clients and distracting team. On the other hand, you wouldn’t miss anything if you would have a checklist to go through of mandatory items that simply need to be done before every single project, simple items that are common for every project.
Here is the checklist that i use, it is not perfect, but it helps in keeping the things tidy in my head:
- Project name - communicated, available
- Project Goal - outlined, shared, discussed
- Project Team - assigned, communicated
- Milestones - planned, submitted
- Requirements - recorded, organized and shared
- Project Tasks - discussed and assigned to team
Each line of the checklist consists of artifact and a set of actions to be accomplished. For example, the project goal needs to be defined, disseminated in team, discussed and possibly changed afterward. Although the order of the actions in checklist is not strict, it’s easy to navigate and just tick the items done. And for me the best tool that helps in achieving this - my to do list template. You can always invent own checklist or just adopt the one from some methodology like XP, RUP or Agile.
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