How to plan a project?

To carry out a project, it does not matter if it is a big or a small, a professional or a staff, it is necessary to know how to bring it to the success. Let's assume that we are not all project managers who have a perfect command of planning and management techniques. Nevertheless, it is possible to realize your project without being professional in this field.

Project definition

Let's look at a general definition of a project. A project is all the actions needed to achieve a well-defined and concrete goal. This goal is part of a specific mission. To realize a project it is necessary to define its beginning and its end, as well as its budget.

Before  starting a project  you have to think of all the details: its purpose (or several objectives), its stages, priority and necessary things, etc. As a self-employed worker who started his activity, I spent a lot of time thinking about my project and all the steps necessary to achieve it.

The key to  doing a project  is to plan it. Without  project planning  there is little chance that it will ever work. It is absolutely necessary to have a realistic and concrete objective. One goal is to materialize in a way a project that lives for the moment in your thoughts. Once the goal is determined, it can be divided into stages to simplify the process.

There are several methods of project planning, such as SMART or with the help of Gantt Chart. We will talk about this later. For the moment let's keep it simple. Prepare your pens and paper, as well as clear mind and a cup of coffee. We begin.

Define the objectives of his project

As I said before, setting the goal of your project is a crucial moment. You must be able to clearly answer the question "What is my goal and what do I want to achieve in the end?" Take time and write down all the important things you need to do to achieve this goal. If you're having trouble with this step, I'll explain how to set goals with the  SMART method .

The SMART method - setting goals

SMART is an acronym that means "smart" in English. It allows you to describe each objective in detail what will facilitate a project.

S pecific  - the objective should be described in a simple and concrete way. So you have to tighten the circle and think more specifically about what you want to do. For example, you want to integrate the fashion sector. It's too wide as a sector. You will sell or produce clothing accessories? For women, men, children? Is it luxury goods or mass market? In France or abroad?

Ask all of these questions in relation to your area.

M ayurable  - your goal should be quantified or qualified, that is, you should be able to measure your progress. For example, in the sales area you need to know what percentage of the market you want to reach.

A tteignable  or  Actionable  - ask yourself the question: how you will act to achieve your goal? I take my example in the sales area, to sell products we can create an online store or take premises in town. Several variants are possible.

R ealistic  - your goal should also depend on various factors such as the duration or the budget, progress. Wanting to be a star immediately is ambitious, but not realistic. So, your goal must be possible to achieve.

T emporel  - set your goal in time. Attention "as soon as possible" does not work. The dates must be more precise than that: within a year or three months, it's already better!

I hope that now you have your goals clear and precise. It's time to move on to the next step.

Organize priorities

Once you have the list, think about what is the priority (s) and needs to be started first. There will certainly be things that you have to prepare in the beginning, and other things that can wait. Or you will have tasks that depend on other tasks in the list, so you will not be able to accomplish them without doing the previous ones. Before you start you have to think of all possible scenarios.

Set dates

To go further and concretize the progress of your project it is necessary to define its start date and end date. Since you already have a list of things you need to accomplish, you have your priorities, you only need to know when you will start working on this project. Also, define how much time you need to complete each task in your list.

To make things simpler and better organized, I propose to  create an Excel table  where you will mark the name of a task, its date and time of beginning and the date of the end. Moreover, if you work in a team, also mark the names of collaborators of each task. To facilitate communication between your colleagues it would be better to use an application like  Evernote, Google Keep, One Note , etc. These applications allow you to share the list of things to do, see their progress and communicate faster because it is online.

It is also possible to visualize the progress of the project using the  Gantt chart . Working with your colleagues, this diagram shows the progress of a project.

Normally a Gantt chart contains the following columns: task name, start date, end date, progress, managers. It is quite possible to adapt this diagram for you. Besides, several applications can be used to facilitate the work. You can also use Exel and then download the different models on the internet.

It's time to act

You have now done a lot of work. You have your goals, a list of things to do, you also have your priorities, a calendar with dates and timing. Your colleagues and you are ready to begin to realize the project. Perfect ! It's time to act.

The steps I described in this article are quite general and for a specific project you will have to add some things. You will know it when you go through the step "organize priorities".

Realizing a project requires a lot of work, and courage too! That is why it is strongly advised to  plan a project in  order to carry it out.