Project Planning for PMs

It feels great when your presentation is beginning to come together and look…’presentable’. But it won’t be done until you have done some substantial rehearsal, going through all of the materials in order. You may find that certain parts don’t flow as well as you thought…and you need to make some changes. You may find that your explanations of the slides need to be honed a bit…to make them flow better to communicate the ideas and complement the visuals.

As the title of this article, and of the series, implies, this is a BIG presentation. It needs to cover a variety of related topics, often explaining difficult and complex topics in simple and clear language, aided by accompanying visuals that also add clarity. Beyond the individual slides, which need to be honed until they are impeccable, the relationships among the slides and topics need to be integrated into a clear and comprehensive whole.

There is no better way to ensure the success of your presentation than to involve all stakeholder groups as early as possible. The approach pays respect to the old adage of “no surprises” – as everyone will know what to expect. Ensure that everyone has some sense of ownership of the presentation – or at least those aspects that are most important to them. This article explores aspects of thinking of yourself as an ‘integrator’ of input and ideas from your various stakeholders.

Preparing for a big presentation on your project is a critical and often daunting task. Initially, you may ask yourself, “Where do I begin?” From my experience, the tried and true approach of building an outline really is helpful to kick off the process. However, the key to doing that right is to review that outline with your key stakeholders before you proceed further. It’s important to know that your upper management, your team, and your customer have vetted your outline of topics to be covered.

With constant changes in the project management marketplace and the basic nature of the work, it pays to find ways to generate an increasing amount of passive income. One straightforward way is with a “high yield account” which will earn returns much higher than checking or bank savings accounts.

Peer to peer lending allows you to earn significantly more interest than alternative fixed income investments. As a project manager trying to increase return while at the same time manage your personal financial risk, consider P2P AFTER you have an emergency fund in place.

Real estate crowdfunding is an effective way for you, as a project manager, to consider generating an increasing amount of passive income to smooth your personal cash flow. In does come with risks…but there are ways to manage those, just as you do on projects, and the returns are quite attractive.

While CDs are not going to make you rich, you’ll see that they are a step in the right direction to enable a project manager to keep more of your hard-earned money and set some aside for a rainy day.

The purpose of this article is to go through this process in a structured way and to provide some insight for practitioners on what projects are most likely to succeed - or fail - from the outset because of lack of alignment with mission.

Projects that align with the organization’s stated mission are more likely to succeed than those that do not - and this article explores how that might play out at IBM, which currently has a statement of values in lieu of a mission statement.