11 Project Management Best Practices to Begin Following Today

Running a successful project is no easy feat. Any good project manager knows that you have to be on the ball at all times. With countless tasks to keep track of, dozens of team members to manage, and strict timelines to adhere to, there’s lots to keep you awake at night.

While you can’t control everything, following project management best practices can go a long way to helping your projects run as smoothly as possible.

Let’s look at how following these eleven best practices can help you optimize your projects, manage your team effectively and reduce your stress levels.

What Does Best Practice Mean?

1. Always Plan a Kick-Off Meeting

2. Never Commence a Project Without Determining Scope and Objectives

3. Ensure Team Members Communicate Effectively

4. Determine Who is Responsible for Managing Risk

5. Be Realistic with Milestones

6. Plan in Time for Change Requests 

7. Be Clear on Documentation Processes

8. Put Feedback and QA Processes in Place

9. Regularly Review Your Resource Plan

10. Utilize a Tool That Enables Transparency 

11. Plan in Wash-Ups to Review Performance

How Forecast Can Help with Best Practices

What Does Best Practice Mean?

Firstly, let’s answer the question on everyone’s lips — "What does best practice mean?" Best practice refers to approaching a situation in a way that is generally accepted as the best or most effective way of doing so. In project management, best practice usually refers to processes and planning techniques that support the effective management of complex projects.

Here are eleven project management best practices you should be following.

1. Always Plan a Kick-Off Meeting

It can be tempting to jump straight into the work when beginning a new project, especially if the timelines are tight. Don’t do this. The best practice is to always start with a kick-off meeting.

A kick-off meeting is attended by all relevant stakeholders and is run by the project manager. The purpose is to ensure that all stakeholders are aligned in their goals for the project and to discuss the role they will play, as well as their responsibilities.

The benefits of waiting to have a kick-off outweigh those of diving into the deep end without one. You will achieve better communication, alignment on goals, and any issues can be ironed out up-front.

2. Never Commence a Project Without Determining Scope and Objectives

Likewise, if the ultimate goal of a project appears clear from the get-go, you may feel it’s appropriate to set the work into motion. Again, don’t do this. Project scope and objectives need to be carefully outlined and analyzed before commencing with any work.

The scope is intrinsically tied to cost and time by the iron triangle, and you do yourself no favors by trying to begin without establishing this first. Scope and objectives also need to be approved by all relevant parties, including internal stakeholders and any external clients.

In this early stage, you should set out to determine your scope and a list of objectives that will help you achieve the ultimate goal of the project. This will include sub-goals, deliverables, any constraints, and the desired level of quality.

3. Ensure Team Members Communicate Effectively

Good communication can be a tough nut to crack, but it’s integral to the success of any project. The best way to ensure good communication throughout a project’s lifecycle is to establish connections between all stakeholders and ensure tools are in place to facilitate open communication.

During the early stages of project planning, it is best practice to have everyone who will be involved in the project meet in person, whether at the kick-off or another arranged meeting. As the project progresses, using a project management system to track progress and communicate will go a long way to smoothing over any misunderstandings and pave the way for success.

4. Determine Who is Responsible for Managing Risk

Who is responsible for managing risk for your project? If you can’t answer that question, you may be missing a risk register.

The best strategy for ensuring that projects run to plan is by mitigating risks in the first instance. This involves preparing contingency plans that map out how you’ll handle a negative situation should it arise. A big part of this plan will include allocating a risk manager to each risk or setting up a dedicated risk team. These are the people who will be responsible for jumping to action to manage a difficult situation and help prevent it from leading to delays. Ultimately, mitigating risk will reduce the chances of issues impacting the project’s outcome.

5. Be Realistic with Milestones

It’s tempting to push yourself and your team to go the extra mile to impress a client or win an industry award. Yet, be wary of the myth of Icarus.

While we want to do our best, it’s best practice always to be realistic. Promising you can deliver more in less time or better quality than your competitor without a clear view on how to do so will inevitably result in you and your team facing burnout. You also run the risk of failing to deliver on that promise.

If the only way to achieve your goal is to go above and beyond by asking your team to pull all-nighters, it’s not worth agreeing to.

6. Plan in Time for Change Requests

While it can be frustrating to change project scope after working so hard to define it in the first place, change requests are a given. 

That means project managers should expect a change request at some point in the project’s lifecycle and have a clear plan to manage this. There are two types of change requests; large requests that see a project overhauled or small changes that are often not documented and add up over time. The latter is better known as scope creep and is something that should be nipped in the bud as soon as possible.

7. Be Clear on Documentation Processes

If you’ve worked in project management for a while, you’ll have experienced at least one situation where you haven’t been able to track down an email or message that contains sign-off on a change or decision you made. Nightmare!

Proper documentation prevents the above from happening. It’s best practice to maintain a project log that tracks every decision made. Not only does this help with justifying decisions later, but it is helpful for onboarding new team members who join later in the project’s lifecycle.

8. Put Feedback and QA Processes in Place

To an experienced project manager, this may seem a simple ask. But many would be surprised to hear how many workplaces lack good quality assurance processes. The best practice is to make sure you have the processes in place to allow opportunities for feedback, both from internal stakeholders and clients, at every stage of the project.

As you approach the delivery date, all deliverables should be run through a quality assurance process that ensures the delivered product meets your business's expectations of quality. Depending on your industry, this could include checking for safety issues, spelling errors, faults with design layout, or coding issues.

This is an important step that should always be taken seriously as launching sub-standard products, content, or services can negatively impact the perception of your company or team.

9. Regularly Review Your Resource Plan

In most businesses, staff are required to work on more than one project at a time to hit deadlines. While it’s important to be agile, we must remember that people’s time is not an infinite resource.

That’s where resource management comes in. A good resource plan is run by a resource manager and provides an overview of what everyone in the team is working on and when. This allows project managers to plan accordingly and shows everyone what they’re meant to be working on and when, allowing them to prioritize.

A resource plan can also consider resources such as equipment, if relevant to your industry.

10. Utilize a Tool That Enables Transparency

It’s easy to get lost in the weeds when it comes to project management. It’s especially easy when working on a large project that sees people begin to form silos. Siloed working is well known to be bad for project management as it prevents the transparency that allows teams to be agile.

Implementing a tool that allows all team members and stakeholders to see time timeline, files, and conversations associated with a project can help provide a clear overview of the project and help facilitate open collaboration.

11. Plan in Wash-Ups to Review Performance

Whether a project went amazingly well or failed to meet expectations, there are learnings to be taken. A wash-up is a meeting held after completing a specific project where everyone involved gets together to discuss the performance of the project. These can be held with internal teams only or involve clients if needed. Wash-ups may feel scary if you’re new to the practice, but they benefit everyone in the long run.

Set a clear agenda for the meeting and make sure everyone involved understands its purpose. If a project didn’t go well, ensure this doesn’t become a finger-pointing exercise but rather an opportunity to review the weaknesses in the project and discuss how processes can be improved for next time.

How Forecast Can Help You Implement Project Management Best Practices

With Forecast, you can help your team adhere to best practices in project management. From automated resource planning that takes the guesswork out of resourcing, to easy oversight of cost and time spent with a range of dashboards and reports, Forecast makes it simple to be the best at what you do.

To optimize your project management with best practices, sign up for a 14-day free trial of Forecast here.