Is Managing a Project Similar to Fighting in a War?

As a project manager, before you accept and kick off the project, how much do you know about the project that you are going to manage? How would you get started to drill down and quickly equip yourself with the necessary information to strategize and lead the project as expected by the stakeholders. Similarly, if you are holding the highest position in the army as the commander, how much do you know about what is coming and how would you maneuver your army to win in the war?

To deliver the project flawlessly or winning the war, both project manager and commander needed to have a thorough understanding on the given project or war and come out with the good strategy & planning before the actual project execution or fighting in the war.

In this session, we are going to discuss on what and how the project manager going to strategize and plan the project in the early stage (before the project kick off). This part of the project management is usually overlooked by the project managers as they are pressured to produce the timeline and quickly get the project kick off to proceed to the detail and actual planning of the project.

With this we are going to cover the following topic…

• Internalize – Understand the big picture of the project – define the project boundary by the project manger
• Collaborate – Solicit the information / requirement from various parties (e.g. – Solution team, business analyst etc.)
• Identify – Pre-requisite / dependencies; ambiguous area; highlight and focus on clearing the ambiguous; hidden deliverable (documentation etc.. ) potential Change Request.
• Assess – With the limited budget and resources (human resource; tools; services), can we do deliver!!
• On boarding – Conversation (1:1) with Stakeholders, project team members, partners (external entity) etc.
• Tailor and plan – customize the project management processes, strategize the project, and plan out the high-level timeline for project kick off

In summary, a good project strategy and planning will have the high chance of deliver a successful project.