What’s the best way to start a project?
There are lots of project management principles, perhaps you have your own internal process or even a qualified project manager.
As design engineers our team have seen a lot over their 20+ years of experience. So our approach to starting a project it’s fully understanding the outcome required.
Yes that’s right, uncovering what the real need is for the deliverable of the project is our starting point.
Kick-Off
There’s definitions such as this:
‘Project scope is the part of project planning that involves determining and documenting a list of specific project goals, deliverables, tasks, costs and deadlines.’
What this means from our perspective is finding all the stones, turning over rocks, moving boulders to see clearly and exactly what that scope needs to contain.
That’s not to say our approach is only getting then sticking to the original scope.
It simply means us all getting together to understand exactly what your challenge involves. That means it’s more like of reaching the best solution. It will certainly facilitate better management of the project from conception to delivery.
Understanding all of the vital components to kick off any project will ensure better success. There’s lots to read on this too.
If there’s no project scope you’ve got a red flag for failure. That’s not dramatic engineering speak there’s lots of evidence to back this up.
Many manufacturers, OEMs and especially government projects have seen project failures or massive overspend and it’s likely the definition or ‘project scope’ just wasn’t in place to start off with meaning the finish was always going to be tricky.
So on your next project the first thing to look for is a partner whose there to support the best kick off possible. Because that way your project will get the best start leading to an excellent finish.
