Getting a project kickstarted well is one of the critical success factors for any project.

I have put together a series of 3 tutorial on the topic and a supporting check list.

You will find the tutorial here as Lesson 17.

Put yourself in the position where you are at the start of a project. You may be either joining a project which has started or you may be part of kicking the project off. Where do you start? There is myriad of areas where you need to find answers - so what framework is available. Well, let’s take a look at a “Project Planning Checklist” which lays these out. I am writing this article primarily with the Project Manager in mind, but it is good for anyone who wants to make an oversized contribution to their project. 

There is a lot in this series of posts and if you are at the start of your project, then take this one topic at a time and work through it before you proceed onto the next topic. I will spread this topic across a three posts, two this week.

So please help me and complete the survey.

Survey here - only 6 short questions.

Just to summarise the first part of this two part post, I said that at a minimum the project sponsor must: 

• Define “Why we are doing the project” in detail.
• Develop the Business Case or Justification for the project.
• Provide key direction, that is, define and identify key constraint, finances for the project and timeline within which the project team must deliver the benefits
• Define clearly the business benefits which must accrue from the project
• And lastly, it is a Key Contribution and Commitment from Project Sponsor, Project Manager & the Client.

We identified the main questions to be answered as being addressed by answering the list of 9 topics below:

1. Project Name
2. Project Objectives
3. Project Benefits
4. Project Constraints
5. Project Milestones
6. Mandatory Project Reviews
7. Critical Success Factors
8. Project Deliverables
9. Sign Off

We answered the first five - so now let us go on and look at the last four

Hope you are enjoying the posts.

Just added a new tutorial on the use of a simple but complete Project Charter - this is a 40 minutes video/screencast which you can download and view at a time that suits you.

A number of topics are slated for blogs, but please feel free to put your suggestions forward as comments.

Thanks.

Firstly let me put some context on this - if you are involved in a small project, then you could be the project manager and the project sponsor! If the project is a larger undertaking, then there is most probably a Project Sponsor, who is a senior manager and may well not be full time assigned to the project. So what are they accountable and/or responsible for? Good question.

This is likely to be a bit long for some, so I will put a short version upfront and a longer version after(which I am sure you will all read!).

Once a week, I will be recording a tutorial on a project management topic - the first 16 topics have been chosen and you can explore the details in the "Tutorial" section of the website.

The tutorials are small movies you can play on your computer or iPhone/iPod and range from 10 minutes to 45minutes; would love your feeback.

The last of the trilogy.

Based on prior evidence, the Client contributes to the demise of projects in one of three ways.

So let's recap, we have looked at 3 big reasons why projects fail  ...  then we looked at how the Project Sponsor might contribute to that. So now, let's look at the role of the Project Manager  ...

So let's look at what the evidence says on Project Managers  ... typical causes of failure are: