Organizing Projects in 5 Steps

Today’s date is 11/12/13. Project leaders are most likely hoping that this is a good omen, and that everything will go in order.

Unfortunately, whether things go in order in under the project leader’s control.

It’s a no-brainer – the key to getting a good start on anything is organization. So, in honor of today’s “organized” date, we thought we would share some tips on organizing projects

Organizing Projects in 5 Steps

Create a project plan
Delving straight into a project without a plan is scary. Get everyone on board by first creating a project plan and sharing it with them. Create a project plan that gives an overview of each team member, their roles, other stakeholders, goals, schedules and deadlines.

Break projects down
It can be hard to keep track of project information if the project is large and has a large amount of tasks and team members. Breaking-down and organizing your projects into sub-projects allows for more control over communication, budget and schedule tracking.

Communicate regularly
Hold regular team or one-on-one meetings to keep everyone in the loop on how the project is going, and to get a sense of whether each team member is on the right track. Quick meetings can help detect obstacles early and this way, teams can take immediate action if changes are required.

Refer back to your project plan
Once you create a project plan, use it a guide throughout the entire project. Keep checking due dates and ensure they are still realistic. If you have multiple teams, ask if they are managing well, or if they need more team members, extra days, or additional tools.

Developing a product? Stay on top of quality
Periodically evaluate the project’s progress and check if the quality of the end product is meeting customer expectations. The key to producing good quality products is to prevent issues early in the development cycle. Finding issues too late causes projects to go off-track, and if this happens, everyone will feel disorganized. Create a quality plan that outlines the standards, acceptance criteria, and metrics that will be used throughout the project; keep referring to the plan.

There are many other things you can do keep your projects organized, but we recommend starting with these. Using project management software helps with all of the above. How do you you keep your projects organized? share your tips with us!