Project Management consists of managing your project plan, achieving your project objectives, and delivering the intended project results to your users, customers and management.  As a Project Manager, doing this effectively requires a disciplined project management approach using key project management methods, tools, and documents to guide your progress.  What are these important project management documents?

1. User Requirements & Project Assumptions:
   customer comments, stated and implied requirements, and project assumptions from the customer or management.
2. Feasibility Study:
   industry research, costs, and methods that provide the basis for the financial justification to management.
3. Business Case Justification:
   the financial justification to management derived from the feasibility study, user requirements and project assumptions.
4. Project Charter:
   the basic problem, goals, benefits, and schedule
5. Project Plan:
   the detailed schedule, budget, resources, risks, assumptions, and roles & responsibilities for all stakeholders.
6. Acceptance Plan:
   customer criteria for receipt of project deliverables.
7. Quality Plan:
   the project management policies, procedures, standards, and reviews used to ensure customer acceptance.
8. Communications Plan:
   the stakeholders, what they need to know, and when.
9. Procurement Plan:
   external resources and the tender management process for acquisition.
10. Post Project Review:
    important project achievements and lessons learned from project errors for future project improvements.

Top Ten ” Must Have” Project Management Documents:

1. User Requirements & Project Assumptions
2. Feasibility Study
3. Business Case Justification
4. Project Charter
5. Project Plan
6. Acceptance Plan
7. Quality Plan
8. Communications Plan
9. Procurement Plan
10. Post Project Review

A disciplined project management process is important to any project.  Project managers are expected to deliver results, on time (if not sooner) and on budget.  Solid project planning reduces the risks associated with any project you take on.  Here are ten reasons why you need project management:

1. Control Scope Creep and Manage Change

Small changes in demands occur on every project.  They come from management, the customer, your project team, suppliers, or other stakeholders.  Individually, they may appear acceptable, but collectively these project demands can add up to a significant project expansion (referred to as “scope creep”) that can overrun your budget.  As a project manager, if you effectively manage the scope of your project, you have a better than even chance of effectively managing project resources — time, money, etc. — and managing change.

2. Deliver Project Results On Time and On Budget

Project planning starts with a well thought out business case justification that usually includes some type of cost calculation associated with Return On Investment (ROI).  Once these measures are established, it is up to the project manager to ensure that on-time, on-budget performance is maintained; otherwise, the project will never produce the expected results.  That’s what good project management is all about.

3. Focus the Project Team on the Solution

The project team can easily drift off topic and spend too much time on the wrong tasks.  A good project manager keeps the project team focused by using a clear and concise project charter, resolving barriers, or shielding the team from unnecessary interference.

4. Obtain Project Buy-In from Disparate Groups

As President Lincoln once said, “Public sentiment is everything. With it, nothing can fail; without it, nothing can succeed.” A good project manager uses the tools in the initiation phase of project management to collect user requirements, project constraints, and a feasibility study to build a strong business case justification.  Using input from various sources, the project manager overcomes dissent and obtains buy-in by communicating the project benefits as the different stakeholder groups see them.

5. Define the Critical Path to Optimally Complete your Project

Every project is made up of a series of connected activities, each of which has its own constraints.  The project manager identifies the critical path of activities — the optimal sequence of actions that best ensure the project’s successful completion.

6. Provide a Process for Estimating Project Resources, Time, and Costs

Using project management software, previous project experiences, and a solid project initiation phase can provide the discipline needed to reduce project estimating errors, increasing the likelihood that the project will finish on time and on budget.

7. Communicate Project Progress, Risks, and Changes

As a project progresses, stakeholders must be kept informed of the outcomes, changes, stumbling blocks, or successes that the project experiences.  Project management creates a project communication plan to address these communication issues, provide a format, and lay out a process for execution.

8. Surface and Explore Project Assumptions

All projects are based on assumptions to some extent.  A good project manager delves into user requirements, project constraints, and management expectations to understand what is said and what is not said.  Relying on too many unconfirmed assumptions can invalidate a project schedule or, worse, sink the project.

9. Prepare for Unexpected Project Issues

Every project runs into unforeseen issues, such as changes in market conditions, and is hit with random cause variability.  Experienced project managers plan for the unexpected by lining up alternative courses of action.

10. Document, Transfer, and Apply Lessons Learned from Your Projects

The last phase of project management focuses on “closing out” the project.  The project manager reviews how well each prior phase — project initiation, project planning, project execution, and project monitoring and control — was performed.  As part of good knowledge management, all project review notes should be dissected and analyzed for patterns, trends, and opportunities for improvement.  These “lessons learned” should be documented and communicated to other project managers before starting the next project.

The Top Ten Reasons Why You Need Project Management

1. Control scope creep and manage change;
2. Deliver project results on time and on budget;
3. Focus the project team on the solution;
4. Obtain project buy-in from disparate groups;
5. Define the critical path to optimally complete your project;
6. Provide a process for estimating project resources, time, and costs;
7. Communicate project progress, risks, and changes;
8. Surface and explore project assumptions;
9. Prepare for unexpected project issues; and
10. Document, transfer, and apply lessons learned from your projects.