Do you have a project routine? One of the things that makes project life exciting (and challenging, of course) is that there are so many unexpected things that crop up and need to be dealt with.
But away from all the drama of project delivery it is incredibly important that you have a good project routine. Why? Because a good project routine will:
- Keep you grounded in your project
- Keep you aware of how individual issues might affect the project as a whole
- Stay on top of the less exciting aspects which often get dropped when an issue is causing distractions
- Stop small, perfectly manageable fluctuations turning into big, unmanageable project issues
- Keep the project in its proper perspective
In other words, this is about maintaining good project hygiene and it’s what the best project managers do really well. It might seem like madness to some that, in the midst of dealing with a project issue, a PM might protect some time to go through their cost plan. It might seem easy when everyone is running around with their hair on fire to decide that you are just not going to submit a report this week. And the logic is appealing.
But you drop these things at your peril. The big, exciting issues will (more often than not) blow over; or turn out not to be issues at all. Meanwhile, the plan review that you skipped over might have saved you from the even larger issue that was coming down the road.
So, it is really important to have a good project routine and to stick to it. Here is mine, along with suggested frequency. As ever, this is not a gospel. Adapt the activities and frequencies to your own project style. The important thing is to have a project routine that works for you.
As you can see, taken together this represents a fair chunk of time on each project – and it should. But at the same time, these are not difficult tasks. This is about doing simple things regularly to make the overall project run seamlessly.
And as a bonus for Todoist users, I’ve packaged them into a template which you can download and adapt to suit your projects. Enjoy!
To do list review – daily
Put aside just 5-10 minutes every day to review the activities you want/need to accomplish. Be realistic about how many tasks you can complete in one day. If a task doesn’t need to be completed today, consider pushing it out. Finally, rather than just having a list of things to do, consider putting time in your diary for each activity. This has the dual benefit of ensuring that time is set aside for its completion as well as ensuring the list is realistic and achievable in the time available.
Action Log review – weekly
It can be a frustrating (and sometimes embarrassing) experience to spend the weekly project meeting going through a list of uncompleted actions and pushing them out. However, if you are proactive with an actions review in the space between project meetings, you will be able to give people a nudge. It also means that you will be on top of any actions assigned to you, so you will be leading by example in your meetings!
Plan review – weekly
A lot of your work on the plan will happen in project meetings and other catch-ups with your team. The tendency in these sessions though is, quite correctly, to look at the near- and medium-term tasks and activities, which can mean the “big picture” gets neglected. Spend just five minutes, once a week, looking at the broader plan and thinking about how things happening now will affect activities further down the line; and whether those activities are still valid, or even necessary.
Project report – weekly
Although it can be the bane of most project managers’ lives, the time you spend doing your report each week will help remind you of the key aspects of your project that you need to be across and talking to others about. A good project report template is vital to do this properly; it’s no good if you spend an hour a week on each project report – it should be 15 minutes maximum to update.
Cost plan review – monthly
Given that most organisations work on a monthly financial cycle, it often doesn’t make sense to update your cost plan any more frequently than that. But, at least monthly, you should be opening up your cost plan, updating what has been spent to date, and reforecasting your costs. For more information on cost planning, take a look at our video here.
Risk register review – monthly
The frequency here may be controversial, as I know a lot of people would argue that you should be in your risk register at least once a week and I do agree that a good project manager will be in their risk register at least once a week. But how often do PMs set aside time to go through the entire risk register rather than update or tweak individual risks within it?
This is what I’m referring to here, and hence the monthly frequency. This activity should involve looking through all the risks that have been recorded. Check that the scores are still correct (probability and impact of a risk will change over the life of the risk); is the mitigation working (and scores reducing accordingly)?; are action owners assigned and are the people assigned actually completing their actions; can any risks be expired?; and so on.
Scope review – quarterly
I don’t know many people who actually do this, so you will immediately be putting yourself ahead of the crowd if you do. What’s more, it is an excellent way to avoid scope creep, which is a key contributor to project failure.
This should start by looking at the signed-off project objectives. Check that you still feel these objectives are understood by the project team and the project activities are geared to delivering these objectives. Then move from the objectives to the project scope. Go through the project scope and check that the activities that were signed off are still the ones being delivered (it is easier than you might think to drift from the agreed scope once delivery is underway).
Now think about the activities you’re actually managing at the moment. Are there any that don’t quite fit with the scope (i.e. has the scope crept and you’re undertaking work that wasn’t originally planned?) Is there any additional work that it might be beneficial to bring into scope (via change control, obvs)?
Team review – quarterly
Once a quarter, take a step back from the project and consider the team itself. Do you have all the right people in the right roles? Are you stretched anywhere? Are there any areas that might benefit from a little resource bolstering?
Now consider the individuals themselves. Do they seem happy and comfortable? Or stressed and overwrought? What support could each individual use to help them to succeed in their role?
Now consider the team as a whole. Is it time for an away day? Or just a social? Or some other activity that will strengthen the bonds within the team and get them working more easily together?
Bonus: nudge your sponsor to look at the benefits – quarterly
Sit down with your sponsor and confirm together that the benefits are still on track and achievable. We should also be clear that the objectives remain aligned to the benefits – in other words, you and your sponsor want to have a high-level of confidence that delivery of the project objectives will enable them to realise the benefits. Whilst this is, strictly speaking, the sponsor’s role, they will thank you no end for helping them to stay on top of it. Everyone wins.
What does your project routine look like? What would you add to the above, and what would you do away with? Let me know in the comments!
FREE TEMPLATES
For a free Todoist template (in CSV format) click here. If you’re not a Todoist user, you can sign up here. (Disclosure: I get nothing for this, but I will get a small thank you from Todoist if you end up going for their paid service).
You can also download a free ‘Project Hygiene’ PDF checklist, so that you can tick off those activities as you do them. Simply click here.
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