Some tips and tricks to get a project manager on the way to start a project successfully

1. A Project Quick
Start Guide

2. The Steps
• Meet the Project Sponsor
• Agree to the Project Scope
• Consolidate the Project Roadmap
• Establish Methodology and Governance
• Confirm the Project Team Organogram
• Confirm the Project Team Role and Responsibility
• Team Status Feedback
• The Project Stakeholders
• The Project Workbook
• The Project Folders
• The Initial Kick-off

3. Meet the Project Sponsor
The Project Sponsor has overall accountability for the project and is
primarily concerned with ensuring that the project delivers the agreed
business benefits and will be the project manager’s champion for all
projects within the company.
When you start at a company setup a time to meet with the project
sponsor and get an understanding of what his vision is for project
management and any concerns that are currently being experienced
Give him time to get to know you in the meeting and how you would like
to approach the projects that you have been brought in to manage
Have a presentation ready that shows who
you are and what you have done during your
career

4. Agree to the project scope
The Project Scope Statement provides the
information to proceed to the business case that
will be approved by the business stakeholders
The purpose of the Project Scope Statement is to provide a
baseline understanding of the scope of a project and includes:
•Purpose and Justification of the Project
•Scope Description
•High Level Project Requirements
•Project Boundaries
•Project Strategy
•Project Deliverables
•Acceptance Criteria
•Project Constraints
•Project Assumptions
•Cost Estimates
•Cost Benefit Analysis

5. Consolidate the Project Roadmap
Project Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4
Name
Name
Name
It is important to clearly establish when you start what the project
roadmap reflects. This can be used where there are multiple projects
that need to be managed or for an individual project that can be broken
down into phases
What needs to be established here is:
What is the current RAG status of the project/s?
What is timeline and is there slippage?
What is the assigned budget?
What is the perceived complexity?
Setup the project roadmap to clearly
show the full picture that can be used
in future meetings with the team and
stakeholders

6. Establish Methodology and Governance
Methodology Governance
Every company has their own form of methodology and governance to
manage their projects. It is important in the beginning to establish
exactly how this works in their project environment. They may be a PMO
in place to assist with this but if not this would be a great place to
confirm the project framework and make recommendations where
required.
What project methodology is used for project
management?
• Prince2
• PMI
• Project SaaS
What project methodology is used for
software development?
• Waterfall
• Agile
• A Blended Approach
How is the governance managed for
documentation and templates that are used
during the project life cycle
• Is there a folder structure?
• Is there a shared location?
• Where can the current templates be found?
• What changes would the company like to bring
in for all project governance?

7. Confirm the Project Team Organogram
Project
Workflow
Lead
Workflow
Lead
Workflow
Lead
Whether as a project manager you are taking on a project that is in
progress or it is a new project, outlining the project organogram will help
to have an understanding of what the internal resources and external
resources into the project are
This will help with beginning to outline the project teams roles and
responsibilities
It will help to take the project roadmap and subdivide each project into
the workflow and establish who the current team lead is in that role
If no resource has been allocated it will provide you with a heads up that
this role will need to be sourced
The project organogram is a great tool to
filter in how this fits into the overall
company structure and matrix whether it is
project focused or business led

8. Confirm the Project Team Role and Responsibilities
Setup a meeting with each member of the team to allow them to define
their current understanding of their role and responsibility
A useful guide is to begin to setup the company’s role and responsibility
matrix and how this is measured against deliverables and KPI’s (e.g. time
to meet task; commitment to team)
Once you have agreed on the role and responsibility setup a document
with the team member and agree that this is the starting point and the
information can be updated as the project moves ahead to ensure that
there is a buy in for the project.
If there are no roles and responsibilities defined there
is generic information available on project
management sites but the ultimate objective is to
agree and confirm roles and responsibilities that will
manage the end to end project life cycle

9. Team Status Feedback
As a new project manager it is very important that
you have a current status on what work has been
currently performed on projects that are underway
as well as any risks or issues being encountered.
If this is a new project the team members can
provide valuable feedback on lessons learnt and
what they believe will improve the rollout and
implementation of all projects.
Providing the right mind set for status reporting will
help future status meetings to be attended and the
correct information provided across all of the project
phases.
Setting up a status dashboard presentation will
help the team members to provide the correct
information in a user friendly way.

10. The Project Stakeholders
By successfully managing your stakeholders you ensure that you will
be supported throughout your project and your influence will be
recognised as key decisions need to be made and implemented
throughout the project life cycle .
Managing your stakeholders effectively is vital for the success of your
project. When you start a project go and where possible meet the
stakeholders.
Get to know them, let them know who you are as a project manager.
Find out their concerns, their expectations and a good cup of coffee
always helps.
The project stakeholder matrix is a great place
to start to define what each stakeholders impact
is into the project. Setup a coffee meeting with
each stakeholder and carefully understand what
their expectations are

11. The Project Workbook
During the initial stages of starting a project setting up the project
workbook will allow you as a project manager to have full control
over the key elements that need to be noted and controlled during
the project life cycle
It is also a great way for every member of the team to have instant
information to the project and provide a guide on what the current
status is.
Although the trend today is to move more and more to project
applications that are cloud based this is still a great way to manage
and control a project
Today more and more companies and project
management are looking to cloud based
solutions to manage the project which provides
full information in real time across the whole
team. .

12. The Project Folders
As you begin to collect information an important step
is to begin to establish the projects folders that will
store and save all documentation that is raised by the
project manager and all the members of the team
The project folders should align to the agreed
governance and methodology and store the
information in line with the agreed governance
To provide easy access to all documentation a central
shared point should be setup for the full project team
A great help is to setup up the project
template in line with the project folder
structure to ensure consistency across all
documentation

13. The Initial Kick Off
Once you have all the project start up information in place it will then
be time to have the initial kick off meeting with the team both internal
and external, the project stakeholders and the project sponsor. It
would also be a good idea to include any business teams that are part
of the process
This meeting is not a project kick off meeting it is where you as the
project manager will lay the groundwork of how the project or projects
are to be managed, controlled and executed within the company
Setup some way that each team member has a
few minutes to introduce themselves and what
their role is
Refreshments are also a good idea to break the
ice and great coffee always is a hit.