If you have been assigned the responsibility to complete a company objective, initiative, goal, etc., by working with others, you’ve just earned the title of Project Manager. Lots of books have been written, seminars offered and college courses delivered on the this discipline, but many people carry out projects everyday without any formal training or even realizing that’s what they are doing. If you find yourself in this spot, follow these basic tips put your project on a path to success.

Develop a Clear Goal Statement. We’ve written several blogs on this subject, so all I will say here is that your goal statement will clearly state for you, the project team and the larger organization what will be accomplished through the project. Read more about goals here.

Create a Project Plan. Do some initial brainstorming to identify the steps that need to be completed to carry out the project, and who needs to be involved. I like to use post it notes to start this process. Then you can line up the notes in the order tasks need to be completed and it’s easy to move them around as each step becomes clearer. Usually this helps to uncover missing aspects and to determine if the completion date is realistic based on how much time each step will take and available resources.

Implementation is the Beginning Not the End. It’s common that once the deliverable is out the door, the team dissembles thinking their job is complete. And while the development part is, the support for the users to ensure complete adoption has just begun. As part of the overall objective, the Project Team should identify how the users will be supported after launch (i.e., post-implementation support) and how the team will evaluate the solution’s effectiveness through either surveys or user interviews. Without this, the success of the project can be limited.

Want More Information on Project Management? Obtain a complimentary Project Planning Tool here. Also, uDrive subscribers have access to tools and templates that can help. These can be found in the Resources for the Parking Manager and HR Tools sections of the site.