Make Your Next Project Successful!

Your Next Project – Successful!

“Plans are only good intentions unless they immediately degenerate into hard work.” – Peter Drucker

Have you ever built your own home or office from the ground up?

I recently managed a development of a brand new office space for one of the businesses that I operate. We were excited at the onset of consolidating 3 offices into one contiguous space. We got to design the space to be a custom fit and best use of the 14,000 square feet.

Everything was exciting until… the real work of managing the project began. There were multiple meetings each week with space designers, engineers, municipal planners, the landlord, and other required trades. This spanned over the course of 3 months leading up to the move-in which was another project in of itself.

What did I learn that you can apply to your next project?

Before you start, find people with knowledge and relevant skills to discuss the project with. This will save you time, headache and resources.
Hire an outside advocate or project manager if it is a large project or outside the scope of your core competency. You will recover the cost of the project manager back through what you save in spending extra time and making costly mistakes.
Don’t settle for less than your full needs. Planning the project is the time to engage in any conflicts or to search for better alternatives. Fight for what you need. It will be far costlier later to change something.
Plan for a 25-35% contingency on time and cost. Unknown factors are inevitable.

I could elaborate for a few hours over a coffee together on the many things that I learned from this experience.

What are your favourite project management tools?

We would love to hear about the projects you managed, optimized and completed. Please share your experiences in the comments below.

Here is a list of 20 great project management questions you need to ask yourself before you start the next project. The list is found at Project Smart in the UK – great questions folks.

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About the Author Shane Fielder

I am a grower of human capability and a business builder. The best part of my life is helping people become stronger and develop their skills, talents and character in order to lead powerful lives. I have had the great privilege to study under some of the greatest minds of business, leadership, health and fitness along with the most talented Martial Arts instructors. My passion is helping people to become even more powerful in life than they already are.