Project Management Step by Step: How to Plan and Manage a Highly Successful Project

Key tips

• Resist the pressure to skimp on planning so you can start the work immediately. What time you spend up-front on planning will be repaid several times over in time saved later.

• Understand the difference between the effort an activity takes and the duration of it.

• Contingency is not poor management, but a realistic and essential component of a plan to account for the risk inherent in any task.

• Focus on getting your plan complete more than worrying about estimates. A poor estimate will mean you may overrun on time, but a missed task may mean you cannot complete the work. (Read Chapter 5 for some important tasks that are easy to forget at planning time.)

• Get the right team, as no matter how good a plan you have, without the right project team ...