A Project Managers – Weekly Checklist

A project manager is the person who has the overall responsibility for the successful initiation, planning, design, execution, monitoring, controlling and closure of a project. The project manager must have a variety of skills – he should be able to understand requirements, ask questions, detect the unstated, and go deeply into understanding what the root issue is, have people skills, and should be able to resolve conflicts. The better a project manager can analyze and recognize the risk associated with the project – the better he can avoid and mitigate the risk. Certain risks can be avoided if we maintain and follow the checklist for every week. Here is the checklist I follow:

Team Meetings

Unity is strength...when there is teamwork and collaboration, wonderful things can be achieved. It is necessary that the whole team meets daily and discuss what is that they have completed the previous day and what they plan on completing today. That will allow you to touch base as a group each morning and will keep the team expecting communication, oversight and accountability from you daily. It’s great idea to keep the project up & running.

Client Meetings

Just as we need to keep our project team engaged and on task, we need to do the same with our project client. One project status call and touch base each week may be fine for small projects or during slow times, but for larger and high visibility projects or projects experiencing ongoing issues those touch points need to happen more often.

Budget

The project budget is always important and keeping it in front of the team and the customer only serves to elevate it to a new level of visibility, oversight and accountability. By reviewing and revising your project financials every week the PM is far more likely to see budget issues before they get out of hand. This helps on a long term.

Project Timeline

Make it a habit to check every week where the project stands. Dedicate a special hour on a fixed day of every week. Check what was promised to the customer in terms on delivery and if are still on track on not. Based on this meeting we can take additional measure to ensure timelines are met or deadlines are pushed.

De-Stress

Hard work must always be rewarded. Make sure the team is not stressed out and has enough time to de-stress. A PM can ensure this by engaging the team in various team activities. Team outings and gatherings ensure more bonding in team and will ultimately lead to better results.

The success or failure of a project depend highly on a Project Manager. He must possess high management and people skills. And most importantly he should be able to mitigate risks. Uncertainties must be avoided. Hence a Project Manage must keep clear & crisp communication and ensure that each team member expresses their voice and address their concerns. And don’t forget the weekly checklist.

About Author:

Shweta Samudra is a consultant in Systems Plus Pvt. Ltd. Within Systems Plus, she actively contributes to the areas of Technology and Information Security. She can be contacted at: shweta.samudra@spluspl.com