Project Management Explained - Questionnaire
Is my work a project?
Is there a start and end to this activity?
All projects have a definite start date and are expected to have a definite end date where the results of the project are handed over to be incorporated into normal business.
Is there a clear deliverable or output that the project has to create e.g. new marketing campaign, new customer brochure, new customer services procedures, new competitor analysis, new team to hire or supplier to contract with?
All projects have expected outputs, including new procedures, new documents, new information flows, new responsibilities.
Is your work going to create something new or amend something that already exists?
Projects are about change – which comes from changing how we work, the systems and procedures we use to do our work or the products or services available to our customers.
Are there users or customers for this work, who have requirements for what you will create and expectations of how they will use it once you hand it over to them?
A project manager gets work done for others and is responsible for asking what the users need, what deliverables must be able to do, what they should look like and in what form the users will need them delivered.
Do you have a manager to whom you are reporting your progress and escalating any problems that you identify?
Projects have a ‘sponsor’ – usually a manager who has the authority to approve the use of resources and who can decide what to do if things are going wrong.
