UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN River Falls

Project Management

Tips

Tips for a Successful Project
  • Start with a project charter. A project team needs a clear and common vision of what they are setting out to accomplish (and why!) with well-defined boundaries. A well-written project charter provides structure.
  • Identify the stakeholders. Who has interest in or will benefit from successful completion of the project? Who may have a positive or negative influence in project completion? Identify them and determine how they will be involved in the project, whether as a core team member, subject matter expert, recipient of communication, etc.
  • Create at least a basic project plan. Starting with the deliverables from your project charter, identify tasks that need to be completed to produce those deliverables. Consider dependencies, timing and who should be responsible for completion of each task. Review and get team buy-in.
  • Clearly appoint responsibility for basic project administrative tasks. For example, scheduling team meetings, taking notes/identifying action items, creating agendas, facilitating team meetings.
  • Gather facts/data about the current state process that needs to be improved before jumping to solutions. Lasting solutions are those created with true knowledge about the issue.
  • Celebrate the progress and success!

Check out the Templates page for actual project charter & communication plan templates and more!