Have you ever had a requirement that was so vague it almost seemed pointless? And the team had to do all sorts of work trying to figure out what it meant. At other times, though, a requirement is so lengthy and specific it’s like reading a textbook.

When gathering requirements is done well, it leads to a fruitful project. Everyone has clarity on the end goal and the client ultimately is satisfied.

But it’s hard to find the right balance between making requirements too dictatorial or too flimsy.

And there’s all sorts of challenges to gathering them. If there’s not equal contribution from all stakeholders, they end up being too business oriented or too tech oriented and they don’t consider the end user.

The point of a requirement gathering session is to unlock the power of the team. It’s about combining everyone’s expertise, and then brainstorming around the project goals. Finding the right requirement gathering technique is key. It allows each person to equally contribute their insight, and the team is able to create a thorough list of requirements with the right balance of specificity and openness.

Let’s consider the characteristics of good requirements in agile, the various types of requirements a team needs for a project and then explore some methods for gathering requirements.

Requirements in Agile

When a team gets excited about an idea, it’s easy to jump right into the design phase. However, without a good plan in place they’ll probably find themselves backtracking over and over again.

Gathering requirements is about developing a good understanding of what the job is before you break ground. It defines the scope of the project, and clarifies to all the stakeholders what the project is working toward.

• Benefits of Requirements

  Taking the time to gather requirements gives the team a clear idea of where they’re headed, so they save time and money by not going down any rabbit holes.

  Additionally, the development team is able to quickly move past the discovery phase and into design and development. And creating good requirements leads to the best possible product for the client.

• Agile Requirements

  One of the principles in the Agile Manifesto states: “Welcome changing requirements, even late in development. Agile processes harness change for the customer’s advantage.”

  There was a time when requirements were presented like a textbook for the team to follow, and the objective was simply to read the instructions and get the job done.

  In agile, however, the orientation is on providing a valuable product to the customer. This entails having an ongoing conversation with the customer and updating requirements throughout the project. First and foremost, the requirements consider the client’s overall objective; they’re not focused around simply fulfilling a list of specifications.

• Characteristics of Good Requirements

  Two areas to focus on when developing requirements are the project goals and tech stack. The goal, at the beginning stage, is defined as the problem you’re trying to solve. Usually, it’s not a specific feature at this point. When the team brings together its collective knowledge and skill set, they’re able to determine which coding frameworks and languages would bring about the best possible user-friendly product.

  A requirement quickly and effectively communicates its acceptance criteria. They say that a picture tells a thousand words, and this is so true in the case of requirements. Oftentimes, by including a photo with the requirement in lieu of text, everyone understands exactly what is expected of them.

4 Phases for Gathering Requirements

As discussed, requirements in agile are never set in stone. Collecting and revising requirements continues until the project’s completion.

However, taking a thorough approach to gathering requirements at the project’s beginning establishes a strong foundation. Here are four key phases a team goes through in order to gather a comprehensive list of requirements.

1. Preparation Phase

   The preparation phase is about learning the basics. The team researches the client and their industry. It researches similar products already on the market, and understands their features.

   The team looks at what the client has already outlined as requirements and brainstorms any questions they have around it.

   They prepare for a meeting with the client by assigning everyone roles, including note taker, moderator and interviewer.

2. Gathering Phase

   The gathering phase entails speaking closely with the client to further understand their perspective and the product goals. Meeting in person is ideal, as it creates a space for everyone to share, and eliminates misunderstandings.

   Develop further clarity around the product goals by asking how the client came up with the idea. This session isn’t always about finding clarity around a specific feature, but more about understanding the desired outcome.

   Determine the project’s budget, scope and timeline. Also, come to a deeper understanding of the company and its structure, and identify a contact person for the team. Create some protocol around changing requirements.

   Documenting everything makes it easy to reference this information later on in the project.

3. Follow-up

   When all the requirements have been gathered and documented, communicate them to all project stakeholders. Finding agreement around the priorities and goals allows the team to move into the design and development phases.

4. Revisit

   Finally, the team is committed to continually re-visiting the requirements. At the end of each iteration, the increment is shared with the client for feedback. Depending on how the process is going, the requirements may, and probably will, change from time to time.

   Updating requirements entails gaining approval from the client’s contact, then coming to an agreement around budget and timeline changes.

   As you can see, gathering requirements is an ongoing process. Properly setting the stage at the beginning of a project ensures that the goals are clear and that upcoming changes take place easily.

3 Classifications of Requirements

Requirements need to be thorough, meaning they represent all the facets of a project. When they’re too siloed, it creates blindspots. For example, requirements that are tech-heavy may not really address user needs. A majority of business-oriented requirements may not delve into the technical capacity of the team.

Requirements generally are grouped into three key areas: business, user and technology. Let’s look at the characteristics of each of these.

• Business Requirements

  Business requirements clarify questions such as: Why would a customer buy the product? What problem does it aim to solve? How does the company plan to earn revenue with the product?

  Addressing the business side of a project entails having a keen understanding of the client’s industry, and the competitive advantage they offer.

• User Requirements

  User requirements focus around the customer experience. The aim is to find a solution that entices the customer, is easy to use and that serves a needs not formerly found on the market. These requirements are similar to business requirements, but they’re focused entirely on the user.

  The expertise of the product manager is essential in creating these requirements, as they’ve researched the market and understand the customer and his or her problems.

• Technical Requirements

  Technical requirements look at things like the backhand functionality of the product, its features and the platform where it’s developed.

  The client may not understand everything about the technical aspect of the product and so visuals are oftentimes helpful here. By effectively communicating all the features the client wants on the product, the development team is able to come up with a tech stack that best serves the customer’s objective.

  In sum, a project has a rounded approach when it creates business, user and technical requirements. This means carefully considering the project from all angles, which in turn leads to a well-developed product.

4 Requirements Gathering Techniques

Once you’ve completed the preparation phase and have developed a good idea about the client and their vision, it’s time to gather requirements from all stakeholders. An in-person meeting is the ideal context for gathering requirements. But it’s still possible for remote teams.

Here are four approaches for gathering requirements.

1. User Story Creation Session

One method for gathering requirements entails having all the stakeholders gather together and each individually contribute requirement ideas in the shape of user stories.

Each stakeholder, including the development team, the client, the product manager, the project manager and ideally a customer, contribute as many ideas as they can come up with. The user story format assures that the requirements are oriented around the end goal.

These requirements are added to the product backlog. At this stage, many of them will be quite large. The product owner reviews and prioritizes them according to the product goal, and the team collectively decomposes the stories and organizes them into features and themes, and eventually items small enough to be included in a single sprint.

2. Solo Requirement Creation Before Collaboration

Each stakeholder in a project has a particular area of expertise, and another area they know very little about. For example, a developer has a sophisticated understanding of the technological possibilities of the product, but may have a poor understanding of the market and the customer.

On the other hand, the product manager is usually the opposite. They have thoroughly researched the customer and the market, and know just what sort of products would suit their needs. However, their technological knowledge is limited.

And so various stakeholders, naturally, focus requirements around their area of expertise.

When a team isn’t able to meet in person to gather requirements, then another effective method is to communicate the basic project goals to everyone. Then, each stakeholder individually writes whatever requirements they think of. Later, these requirements are presented to other team members, perhaps in a video conference platform, for others to provide feedback and further refine the requirements.

For example, the project manager would outline basic issues related to scope, budget and timeline, while the client and product manager requirements would be more focused around user and business requirements. The development and engineering teams outline mostly technical requirements.

The objective is to reap the benefits of each persons’ expertise. At the same, it’s important that each requirement complements the others, and so the secondary meeting is instrumental in rounding out the list of requirements.

3. 9-Step Brainstorming Session

This method for gathering requirements is courtesy of Agile Coach Scott Killan. It’s a fun exercise that draws on the power of anonymity and continual brainstorming to unleash the power of a team. It’s a highly collaborative, yet structured process for generating a thorough list of requirements.

One great feature of this technique is that it’s versatile; it works for groups as large as seventy and as small as six. It has nine distinct steps and each can be time-boxed to suit your time frame.

This method must be in-person, and it works especially well when it includes a variety of stakeholders, including customers.

• Prep Work
  Find a room with smooth walls and tables and chairs. Ideally, have a projector in the front of the room to broadcast the goals to the whole group. Send an email to all participants beforehand, outlining the objectives of the session.

• Supplies
  For this activity you’ll need sharpie marking pens, small stickers with red dots, and 3×5 sticky notes, some yellow and some another color.

The 9 Steps:

1. Introduce the Idea

   Introduce the project and any key stakeholders. Clarify the overall project objective (not specific features), then provide examples. Ask the audience to give ideas of other examples.

2. Brainstorm Requirements

   With a good understanding of the project and its objectives, everyone uses the sticky notes to write down as many requirements as they can think of, using one sticky note per idea. The facilitator collects these as they are written, in random order. This way, no one knows who wrote the idea.

3. Announce All Requirements

   When all the requirements have been collected, the leader and an assistant read them aloud to the room alternately. As they read the ideas, they place them onto the wall in random places around the room. If people come up with additional ideas, they write these down and bring them to the leader.

4. Categorize Requirements

   The next step involves categorizing the requirements. Working in groups of 2 to 4, the group mingles and rearranges the requirements into various categories. This usually generates a lot of enthusiasm as people mill around and discuss. People can continue to add requirements at this stage.

5. Label Each Topic

   The second color of sticky notes comes out at this stage. Continuing to work in small groups, each category receives a label. People may choose to work around a category that most interests them, such as quality assurance or testing.

6. Simplify and Clarify

   At this step, everyone looks through all of the requirements and removes duplicates by wadding up the piece of paper and throwing them across the room. This is where things start to get fun (and a bit messy)!

   If two requirements sound the same but really represent two distinct ideas, they’re re-written to clarify the meaning more precisely.

7. Prioritize Categories and Requirements

   The small groups prioritize the requirements in each category, and the most important categories are identified as well.

8. Discuss the Top Three Items

   At this point, people return to their tables to discuss the top three requirements in each category. This keeps everyone thinking and brainstorming around the most important topics.

9. Vote on the Best Requirements

   As a final step, everyone goes around the room and votes on the most important requirement per category. Some surprising winners may emerge: even the fourth requirement sometimes ends up receiving the most votes.

   And so that’s a summary of a requirements gathering exercise. The anonymity of this project is a great strength, as it levels the playing field and everyone’s contribution has equal weight. Additionally, everyone leaves with a good understanding of the project, and they’re focused around the most important requirements. The sticky notes can be used to form the product backlog.

   At the same time, this activity has its limitations in that it must be in-person, and the coverage of requirements, though broad, is somewhat superficial. There isn’t any drilling down on one concept. This fine tuning would occur at a later meeting.

4. Storyboarding

A picture oftentimes says more than what ten pages of text could communicate. Visual learners especially benefit from the storyboarding technique for gathering requirements.

With this requirements gathering technique, the team draws images of the final product, and the stakeholders and the client contribute suggestions and ideas.

The pictures include all the product’s basic requirements. If the team is developing an e-commerce store, for example, they’d present images of the sign-in page, the individual listing page, the cart and checkout.

This method is helpful for people who don’t have a lot of technical knowledge; they’re able to still offer advice and ideas.

Including an image of the end user is a strong reminder to keep the final product user-focused as the team develops all the specifications.

And so there are some ideas for gathering requirements. When determining what method works for your team, consider its size, the dynamic on the team and the various learning styles of those involved.

Have you ever had one of those days where you had around ten hours of work to do, and only four hours in which to do it? Even if you wear yourself out by going into speed-mo, there’s seemingly no way to get it all done.

At times like these, it’s easy to just throw your hands in the air and give up.

We all wish, from time to time, that we had a few more hours in the day, or an extra week or two in a big project.

Although we can’t create more time, there often is a way to meet a big project deadline, or complete all the errands on our to-do list. It has to do with carefully arranging work in the most time-efficient way possible.

Utilizing a project management technique called laddering helps to find the wiggle room in a tight schedule. How does it work? That’s what we’re about to lay out.

Key Terms

Before looking at how laddering improves project efficiency, let’s first define some key project management concepts and terms.

Project Sequencing:

This is identifying all the steps in a project, and arranging them in their proper sequential order. For example, in a building project, first you build the frame, then add insulation, then put in drywall, then paint and finally add appliances.

Work Breakdown Structure (WBS):

This is breaking down projects into smaller components of work, from beginning to end, and then arranging them according to the project sequencing.

Work Packages:

Work packages are individual components of work on the work breakdown structure. For a construction project, “installing drywall” and “painting” would be individual work packages.

Hammocks:

Hammocks are the smaller individual tasks that make up one work package. For example if “buying land” is the work package, the hammock activities are to research properties, view properties, secure a loan and close on the property.

Critical Path:

This is the order in which work packages need to happen for the project to be completed on time. The critical path is the longest path on the work breakdown structure. It is measured in units of work packages.

Lead Time:

Lead time is the minimum necessary time between the start of one activity and the start of a related one.

For example, let’s say you have two tasks: digging a ditch then laying pipe. The ditch digging takes eight hours, and laying the pipe takes four hours. You can start laying pipe four hours after the ditch digging has started, so the ditch’s lead time is four hours.

Lag Time:

Lag time is the required time between two jobs. For example when painting a wall, there is lag time between applying the first and second coat of paint, so that the first coat has time to dry.

Laddering:

Laddering is when activities proceed in lockstep with each other, so as to keep the project on schedule. The activities are linked to one another like rungs on a ladder.

How to Use Laddering in Project Management

In order to schedule a project in the most efficient way possible, it’s necessary to understand how all of the tasks relate to one another, and identify any lead and lag time between tasks. Once you know this information, it’s possible to scrutinize a schedule and apply the laddering technique. Here are the steps to take:

1. Select two work packages adjacent to each other on the critical path.
2. Break each work package down into smaller hammock activities. Determine the order in which the hammock activities need to happen, and whether they have any lead or lag time.
3. Arrange the hammock activities in such a way that they are completed in lockstep with each other and decrease the total units on the critical path.

In order to select work packages suitable for the laddering technique, identify those that can be broken down into hammock activities, and especially those with lead time.

An Example of Laddering

We use the laddering technique all the time in our daily life. Here is an example of typical errands on a Saturday afternoon. Let’s say you have five hours, and a list of errands and chores that take six hours. Each item on this list represents a work package:

1. Purchase Groceries – Half an hour
2. Get a haircut – One hour
3. Visit the Dentist – One hour
4. Do Laundry – 2 hours
5. Make Dinner – 1.5 hours

How can we fit the six hours of work into only five hours?

Let’s start by selecting two adjacent work packages and determining their hammock activities. In this example, the first three activities cannot easily be broken down, so let’s focus on the last two.

Laundry Hammock Activities

Washing – 30 minutes

Drying – 60 minutes

Folding – 30 minutes

Dinner Hammock Activities:

Preparation – 30 minutes

Cooking – 45 minutes

Serving – 15 minutes

Here is how to arrange these hammock activities in order to save time:

• Prepare dinner at the same time that laundry is drying. This saves 30 minutes.
• Fold laundry while dinner is cooking. This saves another 30 minutes.
• Now the laundry is complete, and the cooking is finished. Time to serve dinner!

Viola, you’ve saved an hour by laddering the tasks within the work packages of “laundry” and “making dinner.” Notice how these tasks were completed in lock step with each other—you needed to be folding the laundry at the same time as dinner was cooking, and to prepare dinner while drying laundry, otherwise the time wouldn’t have been saved.

Laddering works in all sorts of projects where work packages can be broken down. In software design, for example, design usually precedes development, and development precedes testing. However, when you identify the project sequence, work packages and the critical path, it’s possible to identify where to break packages into hammocks and ladder to save time.

What is the one thing most project managers lack? Right! A chance to lift their heads from the day-to-day routine and see if others know a better way of managing projects.

Surfing the net to find the exact book you need may take hours of your precious time. The good news is – we’ve done the work for you.

In this article, you’ll find the eight best project management books to give you a solid understanding of what works well and what should be done differently in your next project.

Pick the books you need most. Read them. Apply them. Chances are, your success is only a book away.

1. A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK® Guide) – Seventh Edition

Author: Project Management Institute
Year of publication: 2021

This is the go-to Guide to keep on your desk if you’re planning to start a professional career as a project manager.

Also known as PMBOK, it’s a must-read for the PMP (Project Management Professional) exam, so don’t expect to read it like a novel. It’s more of a comprehensive guide or an academic textbook. The book consists of two parts – the Guide and the Standards, which nicely complement each other.

The content of the book is detailed and well-presented. It sets out project management common terminology to help you build the foundation for entering the field and be able to communicate with your peer practitioners.

PMBOK seventh edition: how is it different from the previous versions?

The previous editions presented project management as a process (i.e., in its linear order), taking you through the stages of project planning, development, and execution. The seventh edition, on the other hand, is principle-based. And it’s much thinner, just in case books over 600 pages tend to threaten you.

PMBOK is more a project-oriented resource guide that you can read and use; it’s for putting project management into practice rather than passing an exam. That’s why you’ll find the essentials rather than the details in this version.

The latest edition is based on the premise that project managers often forget what they’re doing and why they’re doing it. One part you’ll find particularly interesting is the chapter about systems thinking and critical thinking – two crucial elements that are so often overlooked in project management.

By the way, you can still choose a previous version of PMBOK if you’re totally new to this field and want a structured view of the key processes.

The author of the book is the Project Management Institute (PMI), which is responsible for setting industry standards. No wonder this book is picked by those who are studying project management or want to deepen their knowledge in PM.

2. The Fast Forward MBA in Project Management- Sixth Edition

Author: Eric Verzuh
Year of publication: 2021

If PMBOK is the official guide, then “The Fast Forward MBA in Project Management” is the unofficial textbook – more user-friendly and readable that simplifies most of the jargon used in project management. It doesn’t replace PMBOK but comes to be a great supplement to it.

Through useful case studies, Eric Verzuh gives an excellent overview of key topics (from collaborative problem solving and problem analysis to building high-performance teams). Expect your copy to be filled with notes that’ll help you every step of the way – whether you want to pursue a certification or further refine your skills.

Many chapters have interactive elements – exam practice questions, an assignment matrix, or links to valuable resources to help you kick start your career. No more struggles about how to apply project management principles to real-world scenarios.

The author masters his craft. He has worked with major corporations like Adobe, Boeing, GE Capital, and Nordstrom for over twenty years. Obviously, he knows first-hand what he’s writing about.

The sixth edition: how is it different from the previous versions?

The latest edition of the book has an additional chapter to help a project manager to become a leader. Eric Verzuh believes that without leadership skills, managers lack two critical abilities – to bring all stakeholders together and transform project management into a platform for innovation.

The book is the right fit for new project managers, veterans, as well as instructors who teach project management.

3. The Lean Startup: How Today’s Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses

Author: Eric Ries
Year of publication: 2011

Have a new product idea? Want to navigate smartly in the Hi-Tech market?

Ideal for startups and entrepreneurs, this book will help you initiate and manage growth like a pro. You’re invited to take a well-documented methodology and apply it to the fast-paced, high uncertainty world of startups.

Among the best books on lean project management, this one by Eric Ries clearly stands out. The author gives a good overview of how lean and agile methods apply to the startup world. The real case studies put everything into perspective to help you learn from others and up your game in this field.

More and more organizations adopt lean practices because they “produce greater customer satisfaction and improved profit margin.”

The examples Eric Ries uses are more focused on software SaaS products; therefore, this book should be great for silicon valley practitioners and folks from tech companies. Furthermore, it’s a worthwhile read for those who are part of a large organization that has become stagnant and lost its way. “The Lean Startup” will instill a fresh breath of air into your vision and daily work. However, managers who are successfully running a business most probably are already doing what the book sings the praises of.

The author of the book has a solid career as an entrepreneur with quite a few startup successes and failures along the way. He is an Entrepreneur-in-Residence at Harvard Business School.

4. Sprint: How to Solve Big Problems and Test New Ideas in Just Five Days

Author: Jake Knapp
Year of publication: 2016

It reads like a friendly guide that takes your hand and walks you through the process described as a sprint.

Jake Knapp spent ten years at Google and Google Ventures, where he created the methodology. The sessions last for a week, and the ideal size is seven people or fewer for a sprint. In the book, you’ll find the description of the entire process – from mapping your ideas to testing them. For your convenience, the author also included checklists at the end of the book to keep as reference.

The book is packed with useful details. The ‘no device’ rule, the ‘nobody knows everything’ approach, the ‘how might we’ method, the ‘prototype mindset’ – these and many more tools are provided to help you rephrase your business problems into questions and arrive at ingenious solutions.

You may find the practicality of the 5-day sprint process too challenging (depending on the business environment you’re in and the teams you’re working with), but still, there are some really great ideas that you can put into use. Why? Simply because sprints are all about focus. They teach you how to make the most out of your working hours.

The book is ideal for founders and top company management looking for unconventional methods to improve productivity. It’s also a nice choice for startups who need to take an idea, collect data, and launch the product without breaking the bank.

Jake Knapp has coached companies on the sprint process, including teams at Slack, Uber, the New York Times, and LEGO. Read the book to steal the wisdom these giants have been using to this day.

5. Measure What Matters: How Google, Bono, and the Gates Foundation Rock the World with OKRs

Author: John Doerr
Year of publication: 2018

OKRs is a management methodology that stands for Objectives and Key Results. As defined in the book, it ensures that the “company focuses efforts on the same important issues throughout the organization.”

Among the project management books to read, this one is a great introduction to the origins of OKRs and how to put it into practice. It provides valuable explanations for what can go wrong with top-down objectives and how companies can use OKRs to improve organizational effectiveness.

Loaded with interesting examples, the book does a great job outlining how to set up objectives that are measurable, boost accountability across teams, and align people’s work to bigger business objectives. In short, it’s about setting the right goals for the right reasons.

Those seeking advice on the what and the how of doing things in their business will find this book to be the perfect fit. It pulls the curtain aside to reveal the benefits of having a system for setting goals, choosing a direction, and mastering the art of execution.

John Doerr is a venture capitalist, investor, and board member at Google and Amazon. Probably that’s why you’ll relate to many descriptions presented in the book; the author actually lived the stories he’s telling.

6. The Phoenix Project (A Novel About IT, DevOps, and Helping Your Business Win)

Author: Gene Kim
Year of publication: 2018

Books on project management contain examples you’ll identify with. But while reading this one, you’ll start wondering: “Has the author been hiding in my office building and meetings?” The mistakes, the symptoms, the characters – everything is painfully familiar to anyone within the industry. The author, without a doubt, knows how you feel about failed software projects. The book will force you to stop and reflect on your own experiences and how your team handled DevOps.

“Every work center is made up of four things: the machine, the man, the method, and the measures,” states the author in the book and continues to explain how software development has moved from a traditional approach to DevOps. We all know the reason for this movement: to ensure a fast and uninterrupted flow of work and deliver on the strategic promises we make.

The Phoenix Project is frequently described as “The Goal” for IT, mainly because it uses a fictional plot (like the all-time classic) and provides good takeaways, which make it a fun read. Non-business people will get their feet wet with process improvements without having to decipher burdensome explanations. In addition, the author has walked the extra mile to revisit the presented concepts in a brief summary at the end.

This book is ideal for software development engineers (both senior and junior), managers, system admins, consultants, and executives. For high-level management, the book will draw the bigger picture of what software development is and how it relates to business. At the same time, the book will help junior staff to develop into more mature, well-rounded, and thoughtful engineers.

Gene Kim is the author of several books and has been studying high-performing technology organizations for over two decades now. He founded the DevOps Enterprise Summit back in 2014 which brings together thousands of technology leaders to network, share, and learn. Being a developer by training but having spent most of his professional career in operations, Gene Kim knows how to set shared goals between Dev and Ops teams and build the infrastructure (not only the code!) to achieve high performance.

If your IT department is swamped in work, scrambling to meet demands, cutting corners to release anything, sucking the souls of engineers, then something needs to be fixed. And this book is going to help you do exactly that.

7. Strategic Project Management Made Simple: Solution Tools for Leaders and Teams – Second Edition

Author: Terry Schmidt
Year of publication: 2021

All too often, we fail to do cause-and-effect thinking. We forget that we don’t do each separate project for the sake of merely accomplishing it. We accomplish each project for a reason.

“Strategic Project Management Made Simple” is a practical and accessible guide for project managers who lack hands-on experience and need recommendations from an expert who knows the game out there. Terry Schmidt will introduce the Logical Framework Approach (LFA), enabling you to take a systems-thinking view of project management.

Specific examples accompany the explanation of the framework, which makes the book an enjoyable read. LFA goes from inputs to outcomes, from outcomes to purpose, and from purpose to goals to help you get systematic about each and every project.

The author shows how to share ideas and concepts in an easy-to-understand manner to prepare your team for creating a project management plan that’s strategic, logical, and practical.

Project managers who have hard times managing people will find one of the chapters particularly helpful. It provides information on how to “manage your inner game” by adopting the right mindset and working effectively with many different personalities.

Terry Schmidt earned his MBA from Harvard Business School, worked for NASA and was a consultant for World Bank and USAID-funded projects. He also teaches at UCLA and MIT. He is yet another professional who offers great information on navigating the unfamiliar waters and finding success.

Before we finish, let’s shift the gears slightly.

Project managers often need to learn not only how to manage better, but also how to think better. That’s why a book by Ray Dalio sums up our list of project management books.

8. Principles: Life and Work

Author: Ray Dalio
Year of publication: 2017

Take a moment to think. What are your criteria for making decisions?

Not an easy question, huh?

Ray Dalio gives answers to complex questions; he provides recipes for dealing with situations that happen over and over again by showing the path of building a system that works. It’s extraordinary; by applying these techniques, you start thinking in a more principled way.

Pain plus reflection equals progress – here’s the formula the author suggests and takes you on a journey of setting goals, learning continuously, and making informed decisions.

The book should be great for managers seeking ways to sharpen the edges and step up projects for success. The tricky part of the described system could be the following – to put it into practice, you’ll most probably need a work environment with a strong corporate culture, as well as team members who are open to transparency, change, and experimentation.

Ray Dalio founded one of the world’s largest and best-performing hedge funds – Bridgewater Associates. With all of the tremendous success the author has had in business and investment, you can rest assured that the wisdom this book shares is applicable and will help you come to grips with your most pressing problems.

Organizational alignment is essential for sustainable growth in the right direction. As the workforce changes to include more remote positions, the organizational alignment tools companies currently use will need to be updated.

We will define organizational alignment, outline the benefits, give the most popular organizational alignment model, how to adapt to an increasingly remote workplace, and the top five tools for success.

What Is Organizational Alignment?

Simply put, organizational alignment is the process of aligning all aspects of a company – including its processes, policies, and goals –  with its mission, vision, and values.

The employees must also align with the company itself, and consider how their values are reflected in the workplace. Including this aspect in your organizational alignment strategy is important because it keeps the company and its employees working towards the same goal. It also promotes a united workplace where both the company and its employees can thrive.

How Organizational Alignment Can Benefit You

Let’s discuss the range of benefits that comes with building a company that is both well-aligned to execute on their vision and has processes in place to maintain growth. The organizational alignment affects not only the company’s success but also plays an influential role in the entirety of the workplace culture. The most notable benefits include:

• Higher Employee Morale

  Employees that identify with their workplace through shared values will experience a greater sense of belonging. This is increased further through a company that supports its employees. 

• Faster Growth

  Companies that have promoted alignment throughout their entire organization will discover higher productivity rates. Employees who share the same values as the company they work for will enjoy the work more and will want to help the company succeed. This productivity increase is also supported through your employees adopting company processes quickly. This can be fostered by placing your staff in roles they identify with and feel capable in.

• Increased Engagement

  People enjoy going to work when they are highly aligned with their roles. It’s important that your employees are able to identify how their tasks are directly related to their long-term goals within the company. How engaged your employees are will be a direct reflection of their alignment with the tasks they’ve been assigned, and will affect both their productivity rates and the quality of their work.

• Employee Empowerment

  Knowing your employees align with the company values and processes, you’ll be able to delegate more effectively. This will let you empower your team to make effective choices that reflect those core organizational values. This will not only create more responsible employees but will let them have a more active role in the company. Additionally, leadership will be able to refocus on the most important tasks to support their team.

The Most Popular Organizational Alignment Model

Over time, how a company implements organizational alignment has changed. Companies advance and expectations shift to reflect up and coming trends and new ways of working. How a company aligns itself needs to be adjusted to meet the new workplace demands. There is, however, one framework that is more commonly used than others and may be beneficial to your company if implemented well.

It’s important to note that this framework is typically used in a 9-5, in-office workplace. It may not transfer well to the changing workplace model where hybrid or remote work is becoming more common (but we’ll get to that next).

The 7S Organizational Alignment Model

This model focuses on seven areas that work together to reinforce and benefit the entire system. This method includes:

• Strategy
• Structure
• Systems
• Staffing
• Skill Sets
• Style
• Shared Values

Let’s break down each of these areas individually:

Strategy

This is how your organization works to further grow and maintain its competitive edge in your industry. It includes aspects such as project processes, marketing techniques, sales tactics, updated products, and services, etc. To maintain alignment with your company, you’ll need to review the current workplace strategies your company uses. Compare these to the company values and goals to ensure they are effectively working together.

Structure

This is how your company plans to complete tasks and projects. It could include how tasks are delegated, what departments you need in your company, how reports are managed, etc. To ensure effective alignment, review all structures in place and determine which ones reflect the core values of the company and support those of the employees.

Systems

This includes your policies and procedures, which have direct control over how a company functions. This section includes any programs and software the company uses, collaboration processes, project planning, and resources available. Review these aspects to ensure work is being completed in the same manner across the company so that it is coherent and maintains efficiency and effectiveness.

Staffing

Staffing directly refers to those individuals you choose to employ. Consider your hiring practices and training processes. How your company manages these two vital aspects will have a large influence on the alignment of your staff and company.  Intentionally create a workplace that accounts for the changing workforce. Hire people who reflect the values your company holds.

Skill Sets

What are the talents and abilities your employees bring with them? This is important to the structuring of departments and teams. When assigning tasks or promoting collaboration, take individual skill sets into consideration and use them to find the best candidates to find success. Quality work is completed when people are working within their skill sets and feel capable to complete the work well.

Style

Often this is reflected in an organization’s management style. How your managers treat their employees, and their common practices, are a direct reflection of the company. Review your management through project management audits. This will help you ensure your managers are behaving in accordance with the company standards, and that they are upholding the values of the company.

Shared Values

These are the overarching aspects of a company that are deemed most important. These values are involved in all decisions a company makes, and are the guiding force for all projects. Use the shared values of your organization to create a clear and strong mission statement. This mission statement will be the largest supporting factor of your organizational alignment.

Including these seven elements in your organizational alignment practice will help you create a strong, supportive workplace. While some of these are transferable to the remote world we’re beginning to experience, there are some important areas that will require some updating.

Changing Organizational Alignment For A Remote Workplace

Now more than ever, companies are adopting a remote workplace. For some companies that means creating a new hybrid working model where people split their time between working from home and working from the office. For others, it could be a fully remote model bringing lower operational costs by removing the need for a physical workplace. However a company has decided to include remote options for their employees, their organizational alignment strategies must reflect those changes. 

Early research is finding that people are feeling more aligned with their workplace through remote work, in large part to it giving them a better work/life balance. It’s also showing increasing rates of employees feeling understood by their workplaces. To continue building better alignment with your staff, there are three important things you should be including in your organizational alignment strategy:

• Promote Greater Flexibility
  Allow for greater flexibility to suit everyone’s individual working style. Some people prefer to get a lot of work done in the morning, while others find they produce better work in the afternoon. Letting your employees choose how they will frame their work hours can contribute to employee success and company growth.
• Adjust Your KPI’s
  Key performance indicators will need to be reflective of your employee’s output as opposed to their input. The important part is your employee getting their work completed, meeting all expectations, and maintaining quality. The hours they spent working to make it happen isn’t as important and doesn’t define their value as an employee. Place more weight on what your employee produces, and their ability to meet their deadlines and expectations, than you do over how long they sit at a desk.
• Update Workplace Policies
  Create updated policies to support remote workers without infringing on their current benefits. Some companies have begun removing perks and previously provided compensation from their employees who have taken a remote role. A company that maintains current standards and creates supportive policies for their new remote roles will help maintain alignment with their staff and discover greater benefits through doing so.

5 Ways To Align Company Goals With Employee Goals

Organizational alignment is most powerful when its focal point is on matching company values to those of your employees. Creating a strong relationship between your company and its employees is vital in the changing workplace. Here are five things you can do to build a united organization:

1. Be clear in your mission statement and company values. Keep this in mind throughout any hiring period. Use these values and goals to guide the interview questions to get a strong sense of your potential hire’s personality and probability of aligning with the company.
2. Include regular employee reviews that include goal planning. This will make your employees feel valued and supported by the company. People want to feel they can grow within their company and that they are supported in doing so. Take time to help your employees create a strategic plan to achieve their goals within the company, and provide them with the resources to meet those goals. During regular review periods, measure their success, discuss the areas they are struggling with and reevaluate the plan, making changes to reflect your employee’s progress. Not only does this keep your employees happier, but it also fosters a higher level of commitment, reduces employee turnover, and creates a highly skilled workforce.
3. Send out regular surveys to let your employees tell you what they’re enjoying about the workplace and what they’d like to see in the future. This is a great way for you to gauge what your employees need, and include some of them in future policies. This will help your employees feel heard by the company while creating a better workplace for them.
4. Keep up to date with current workplace trends. Review reports and research findings, and let this guide you in creating more supportive, updated company policies that will benefit your employees while reflecting the values of the company.
5. Hire and train a highly capable management team. Strong leadership is the foundation for your company’s success and they are often the first contact point for your employees. They must reflect the values of the company, and create a workplace atmosphere that is in alignment with company policies. They must want to see their employees succeed. Managers should be skilled in empathetic communication to support their teams and create a healthy workplace. They need to be present and promote connections between their employees, building strong relationships and creating a welcome environment. By tying your company values to your manager’s leadership style, you’ll foster a healthy and happier workplace where your employees enjoy their work and want to work hard to see their team, and company, succeed.

Top 5 Organizational Alignment Tools For Success

Promoting strong alignment throughout your company can be challenging without the proper tools, especially with the changing workplace dynamics. Here are five tools that can help you find success in organizational alignment.

1. Use A Project Management Tool
   One of the most impactful tools you can use to support organizational alignment is by using online project management tools to support a hybrid or remote workplace. Implementing a tool like this will help you connect with your team and manage your project all from one place.
2. Clear Organizational Processes
   Create clear organization processes that are promoted company-wide and reflect the changing workplace. Include strategies and expectations around document sharing, team calendars, security, and data analysis.
3. Utilize OKRs
   Objectives and key results, or OKRs for short, are important tools to include in your company alignment strategy. This will help you track the outcomes of your objectives and measure their effectiveness in regard to company values and overarching goals. This can be used in an in-person workplace as well as in a remote one.
4. Make SMART Goals
   Using the SMART method will help you create your goals in a way that makes them both actionable and measurable. Creating your goals in a detailed way like this will help ensure each goal your company is working to achieve is supporting the overarching goals of the company altogether.
5. Communication Systems
   Solid communication systems include expectations for how the staff is to communicate. Is email more efficient? Do employees need to respond quickly to inbound emails, or can they respond when they are able to do so in a way that fits their schedule? Include the expectations of communication in your workplace handbook or have them easily available for all staff to access and review. This will help you create clear communication processes, which will make connecting more efficient and predictable.

Whether you’re looking for ways to streamline your business or just getting started, a resource plan is a must. Mapping out what you need to get the job done will make your company run more efficiently today and in the future.

Are you considering putting together a resource plan, but are not sure how to get started?

This guide will introduce you to the essentials of resource planning and explain why it’s important for managers at all levels of an organization. We’ll also provide tips on how to get started with your own resource plan and our own recommendations along the way.

What is resource planning?

Resource planning is the process of determining how much or what kind of resources are needed for a particular task within a team’s project. This involves deciding how many resources need to be allocated to your team members based on their skills and capacity.

The goal of resource planning is to recognize, forecast, and set-aside various types of business resources such as human capital or equipment for a business. The strategic use of resources can help a management team become more efficient and effective.

Types of Resources

There are a variety of resources available. The following is a list of some of the most prevalent types:

• Human resources – This includes all of the key personnel who will be working on your project. You need to know what their specific roles are, what qualifications and experience they have and how many of them you will need. You also need to know what their working hours will be and what tasks they’ll carry out within the project timeline.
• Financial resources – This includes all of the money that will be spent on your project. This helps you to determine how much it will cost as well as what kind of budget is required.
• Technology resources – This includes any equipment that will be used to complete tasks, as well as software and applications that are needed for projects.
• Facilities – This includes any physical structures or places that will be needed for your project, such as the work environment and office spaces.

With resource planning, you can keep your team organized and on task. You’ll have a good sense of their capacity so that they don’t burn out or get too tired with all the work required.

A resource plan is, generally, created during the start of the project. It’s usually created by the person in charge of the project. This person will be responsible for identifying the needs required for the project.

Why is resource planning important to project management?

Planning is essential for the success of every project. This is why understanding what your project needs, and identifying the specific resources it will take to accomplish it, are essential.

You risk adding unnecessary stress and strain to your project if you don’t have a resource plan in place. If you don’t prepare properly, your team may not complete tasks on time or miss milestones.

Simply put: It’s not good for business to keep your employees in the dark about what their responsibilities are and what tools and equipment they need to get the job done.

A proper resource plan will also help in reducing budgeting and help accurately forecasting project expenses. Without doing resource planning, it’s impossible to have a proper idea of what resources are needed when and how much they will cost. This is crucial because by resource planning, you can better your chances for success in your project or enterprise.

If you don’t optimize your plan for resources, your project will most likely fail. Resource planning is the bedrock for any project plan. It’s what makes or breaks a project because it deals with the people who are going to be working on your team and what they’ll be doing in terms of work hours, tasks, and the like.

If you have a solid resource planning strategy in place from the start, your chances for success greatly increase.

So what’s the benefit of resource planning?

Simply put, the greatest advantage is that you’ll avoid a lot of problems. Significant issues emerge when organizations try to do things without an adequate resource plan. Here are a few examples from our list of resources.

Human resources

What does it look like when human resources are mismanaged?

There are several possible scenarios. For example, when there are too many people assigned to a task, it can create a bottleneck that slows down the work and impacts deadlines. Overstaffing is a huge problem.

Another scenario is if you’re understaffed on a given task, then you run the risk of employee burnout, project delay, or even project cancellation.

In both of these cases, you run the risk for a decrease in your employee’s morale.

Financial resources

When things go wrong, the first place most people look, is their budget. So what happens when you don’t have one or it’s not properly planned out?

Let’s say you run your project without knowing the costs. If you don’t have any idea what things are going to cost, how do you know when you’re overspending?

Project managers who simply hand wave their resource planning don’t know if they’re staying on budget or not. This lack of knowledge can be a huge problem because it impacts the entire project.

Technology resources

Say you don’t have a plan for what software tools or equipment will be required to get the job done. Then a lot of time might get wasted trying to figure it out. Employees might spend their time and efforts trying out different tools or even performing unnecessary tasks, which wastes company resources.

Not having a plan for what technology is needed can also create issues with compatibility among your team members and system errors that slow down the workflow until they’re fixed.

Facilities

The resources that are available in the workplace, such as cubicles, furniture, etc. can have a big impact on your employees’ morale and productivity. Your company’s work environment is part of creating a productive and positive work experience for your employees.

Simply put…

Resource planning minimizes these problems by ensuring that everyone has what they need when they need it. Without a solid resource plan, you risk putting unnecessary strain on your employees and the negative effects that come with it. The result of not having a resource plan is missed deadlines, loss in productivity, lack of communication, burnout, increased costs, etc.

While there are many other benefits than what we’ve described here, they all boil down to one thing: When you have a proper resource plan in place, the chances of success greatly increase.

So what’s the process for creating a resource plan?

Resource planning should be done before you begin your project. Without a plan in place you won’t have a good idea of what tasks need to be done and when, so it will be difficult to navigate the process along with its contingencies. That’s why it’s important to do your resource planning during the planning stage of your project.

3 Key Components To a Rock Solid Plan

In order to have a solid resource plan, you need to know what your project is, who will be working on it, and your schedule.

The 3 key components are: What will be done, who will do it, and when?

With those pieces of information you’ll have what you need to create a rock solid plan.

1. The aim of the overall project along with a breakdown of all of the milestones, with the major tasks needed to complete each milestone.
2. The amount of resources required for each project task. Many resources in projects are used daily. So be prepared to create a detailed plan to determine how they are being used.
3. Scheduled dates for the tasks. It should include the amount of time required by the people working on the project, equipment rented, and project site rent.

Without these 3 key elements, your resource plan won’t be as solid as it should be. Remember, the more detailed you can get with these three components, the easier it will be to figure out what resources

5 Steps to creating a resource plan

Now that we’ve identified the 3 key components of a resource plan, let’s take a look at how you can go about creating a resource plan.

Step 1: Write down resource needs

Create a breakdown of all the resources needed for your project. Organize them by task and decide which ones you want to work on together, then define their responsibilities in detail so that when it’s time to get started, they’ll know exactly what to do.

Next list out any equipment needed like computers or machinery if there isn’t already an existing one.

Step 2: Forecast resource usage

Determine how much resources will be required throughout the project’s life cycle from the resource list. Try to be as detailed as possible. Remember you want to think about workers, budget, equipment/software, and work environment.

It is absolutely essential to calculate the total price tag for all your project’s resources by adding up their individual costs. Then determine what percentage of that will be needed over the course of the project to cover charges like staffing, equipment rental, project site rent, or software.

Step 3: Build a resource schedule

Create a schedule with resources required for each task, including the people/equipment needed, when the tasks will start within your project’s timetable, and when they’ll be completed. This way you can quickly identify what resources are being used on which days so you know who to call if there is an issue.

Step 4: Redistribute resources

After your resource schedule is built, you might need to redistribute the resources if their usage is uneven. This way they’ll be more evenly distributed throughout your project’s life cycle and spread out the workload accordingly.

So what about contingency plans?

Contingency plans are used in cases where it looks like there isn’t enough of a resource for what needs to be done. This plan allows you to have an idea of who will make up the difference in case something happens.

For example, say you need 4 people for your project but only 3 are available; one person will act as the backup if someone calls out sick or can’t work during a scheduled time. The key is to always have a plan B if something goes wrong so your project doesn’t suffer any setbacks.

Step 5: Review and Amend

Once you’ve finished your resource schedule, make sure to review it. You might notice that potential shortfalls in your allocation, which you need to balance out by either acquiring more equipment, hiring another person or increasing budget.

You might also notice that there are too many resources assigned to one part of your project while other parts are lagging behind which will require you to redistribute the resources accordingly.

Sometimes supply chain issues can create a scenario where you have to work with limited resources. But as long as your resource plan is in place, you’ll always have a contingency plan so that there are no surprises.

If that’s the case, contact your suppliers and renegotiate until you find a solution. Also allow time for workers to train on how to use equipment or learn new skills.

When it comes to project management, a project closure checklist is important to give guidance and protect the quality and caliber of your present and future projects. Some may believe that simply finishing the project is the final step of the process and the most important aspect of a project is the work put into it to make it successful. While that certainly is important, how a project is closed out can have a significant impact on how it performs, the satisfaction of your clients, and the overall success of your company altogether.

So, let’s define a project closure plan, and discuss why it can be a valuable addition to your project timeline.

What Is Project Closure?

Project closure can be defined as a system of steps designed by the management team aimed to support the final stages of a project. Simply put, it’s the closing phase of a well-planned project.

When you begin a project, it’s important to include project closure into your working timeline and schedule— especially when a project is being billed based on the total hours needed to complete it. Project closure takes time, so it’s vital that you account for it before you begin.

To help ensure a smooth transition through your project closure, include it in your project schedule. This will help you make sure it’s not forgotten as the project continues through its various stages. To make this even more effective include the closure checklist (or link the document of it) in the schedule notes. This will give your team access to the final steps before they begin, allowing them to use the checklist to guide their work, including task completion, testing, documentation, and organization.

Top 4 Benefits Of Having A Project Closure Plan

The benefits of including a project closure process in your organization can vary based on how intricate you want the process to be. While a more detailed project closure may seem like it would provide more benefits, this may not always be true. It’s important to consider your timeline and the most valuable aspects of your project. This will help you create a project closure process that is best suited for your project, and yield the best benefits.

Here are the benefits of including a project closure checklist and plan:

• Promotes Organization Throughout The Project Lifetime
  A well-designed project closure plan that is created and shared prior to the work beginning, will help your staff pre-plan essential steps they must take. This would include their organizational systems to keep all necessary documents stored properly, payments to be made within their scheduled bounds, and reports being generated to support the closure checklist.
• Enhanced Learning For Future Projects
  One of the main aspects of project closure is documenting issues the project faced, along with their solutions. These can be discussed following the completion of the project to help influence updated procedures for the betterment of future projects.
• Provides A Safety Net
  Project closures include final rounds of testing and allocate time for the team to go through the project to flush out any areas of concern. Implementing a strict review system during the final phase of the project helps you protect the integrity of the project before the deliverables are released to the client.
• Increases The Quality Of Your Projects
  Including a project closure process helps you consistently produce high-caliber work for your clients. This leads to better engagement, higher commitment, and better retention of clientele. In many cases, this can make your company an industry leader, creating a more valuable service that leads to an influx of new, more exclusive projects.

When Does The Project Closure Process Begin?

A project being finalized isn’t the end of a project timeline. In fact, this is the signal for your team to enter into their last phase. Often, a project team moves into its closure process when a project is presumed finished and is ready to be handed off. At this time, management will begin working their way down their project closure checklist, formally beginning the final tests, organizing reports, settling invoices, and releasing resources no longer needed.

What Happens If You Don’t Have A Project Closeout Plan?

Project closeout plans play a vital role in a company’s growth, workplace culture, and overall company success. Failing to include a closeout plan can put your team and final project at risk in a number of ways, such as:

• Decreasing Learning Opportunities
  A large part of any project closure is reviewing the issues the project experienced, along with the steps taken to mitigate them. These provide valuable learning opportunities for your team, helping them make more informed decisions in future projects.
• Higher Risk Of Errors
  During project closeout, the team puts the project through final testing to ensure they are handing off a quality product to their customer. If these tests are not properly completed or missed altogether, you run the risk of overlooking project errors you would have been able to mitigate prior to handoff.
• Reduced Employee Morale
  One of the final aspects of project closure is employee gratitude and recognition. This step is one of the most valuable ones to include in your plan and will have a huge effect on your workplace culture and team morale. If you skip this step or glaze over it, it can quickly deteriorate your team’s production, quality of work, and satisfaction within the workplace.
• Less Organization
  Organization in the workplace is a vital aspect of any strong workplace. Without strong organizational systems, you may miss collecting, reviewing, and closing out vital documents connected to the project. These documents are especially important when they are connected to any financial aspect of the project, and if not closed out appropriately, can leave you open to liabilities.
• Exceed Project Timeline
  When project closure is included in the timeline, it helps keep your project on schedule by ensuring all vital aspects are accounted for during the closing stage. If this is not done, you risk your project running over its expected timeline. This creates a scenario where you and your team are crunching to get the essential final tasks completed without the time allocated to do so. It may even be too late for fast-tracking.
• Increased Workplace Stress
  When your staff feel rushed to complete a project or are not allotted the appropriate time to complete a project to the expected caliber, it creates a more stressful work environment. High demands mixed with unrealistic timelines can be detrimental to the health of your team. Implementing a well-planned closure process mitigates that stress.

Now that you have a good understanding of why project closure plans are so important, let’s look at how you can set it up for your next project!

Project Closure Process – Stages & Steps

How you design your project closure checklist will reflect your management style and the processes you have in place throughout the lifetime of the project. Each step that is typically included in a project closure process will fall into one of three stages:

1. Technical Processes
2. Learning Processes
3. Team Morale Processes

When designing your project closure process, there are some vital aspects to include to help promote a highly successful, quality project. Let’s break them down into their individual stages.

Technical Processes

This stage includes processes that are aimed to complete and polish the final project, and relate directly to project items themselves. There are four main steps you should include in this stage:

1. Review The Project Outline And Expectations
   This signals the beginning of the project closure process. In this step, meet with your team and go through each aspect of the project, verifying that everything has been completed. Look at tasks individually and have the corresponding person verify they’ve been completed, and sign off on their work. This serves three distinct purposes. First, it ensures the project has met the set of expectations assigned to it during the planning phase. Secondly, it gives everyone an opportunity to make any final adjustments to the project or highlight any aspects that have gone unmet. Lastly, it solidifies accountability and professional responsibility throughout your team when they sign off on their individual tasks.
2. Run Final Product Tests
   Before you officially hand the project off to the client, you want to take the necessary steps to ensure it will perform as expected. Take time to test each individual aspect of the project as needed, and manage any issues that are flagged. After completing your final tests, complete detailed functionality reports to back the project up once it’s been handed off. This will help you feel confident that you’re providing a high-caliber project to your client.
3. Provide Deliverables
   Once you’ve completed all tests and are ready to hand the project off, gather all necessary deliverables to be reviewed by the client. Verify with the client that you’ve met the project expectations and have them sign off on the final product you’ve created for them.
4. Finalize All Project Documentation
   In this step, you’ll need to go through all the documents that are connected to the project. This may include things like budget approvals, contracts, issue and solution logs, invoices, and resource funding and allotment. Verify that all documentation has been signed by the required authorities and is ready to be closed out now that the project has been handed over to the client. Completing and closing all documents associated with the project, finalizes all contractual obligations, and serves as binding recognition of the completion and handoff of the project.

Learning Processes

The steps you take after a project has been wrapped up will prove valuable to the updating of current processes and the growth of your team. Many projects will provide insights into its strongest and weakest areas. These provide critical learning opportunities for both you and your team. This learning is usually done by including two important steps:

1. Reflect On The Project
   When you’ve finalized the project, meet with your team to review its outcome and the processes involved in meeting its expectations. Consider things like:

   “Did the project go as planned?”
   “Did it turn out how you expected?”
   “How could you have made the process more efficient?”
   “What are some of the lessons you learned throughout the course of the project creation?”
   “How could these lessons influence your next project?”

   The answers to these questions will help you make a list of some of the important lessons this project taught you. Pose these questions to your team in an anonymous questionnaire to get their thoughts on it as well. Keeping it anonymous will help ensure the answers are honest and accurately reflect your employee’s experience throughout the project.

2. Document Essential Learning Points
   Once you’ve taken time to consider the learning opportunities experienced during this project, it’s important to make formal documentation of them. This will ensure they can be used to help improve policies and procedures for future projects.

   During this process, host a project closure meeting and include a Q&A section. Ensure strong meeting notes are taken and include them in the learning documentation. Encourage your team to openly discuss the learning opportunities that have been brought forward from the previous step. As a team, brainstorm how these lessons can influence future projects and if they can benefit certain types of project tasks commonly seen. During this meeting, set time aside to discuss the struggles the project faced, and how they were overcome.

   Documenting the important learning points discovered each time you complete this stage of a project will help you create more efficient systems for each future project. Additionally, you’ll be able to develop procedures that reflect the individual strengths of your team while planning for additional support systems for weaker areas.

Team Morale Processes

Team morale is the most influential aspect of any project. How well your team functions together, and how well they move through a project is a direct reflection of you as a project manager. This is why including team morale processes at the end of every project are essential.

To effectively maintain and boost positive team morale, you’ll need to include three valuable steps in your project closure process.

1. Recognize Strengths And Exceptional Work

   In this step, show your gratitude for your team’s role in making this project a success, and thank them for all of their work. Highlight the progress your team has made. This could be their inner workings, their increased project success, or their progress towards a shared goal. Recognizing the team as a whole helps reinforce that the successes found within are for everyone, which can aid in stronger bonds being formed throughout the team.

   Following this, it’s important to recognize the individual goals and growth of your team members. Provide affirmation to those members who completed exceptional work, and who demonstrated strong respect and support for their team members. This will encourage each member of your team to meet their individual goals, and recognize the range of talent within the team.

2. Hold Individual Accountability Meetings

   In these meetings, review each person’s deliverables, productivity, and discuss their individual experiences throughout the project. This step is more than just reviewing an employee’s output and holding them accountable for their ability to meet or exceed their expectations. These meetings go beyond that and should be used to connect with your staff and foster their individual success within the company.

   Use these meetings to highlight the strengths you’ve witnessed in that person. Take time to discuss long-term goals and work alongside them to create success plans for them. Brainstorm how you can help them achieve their goals, and the resources they would need to do so. Ask them how you could have supported them better during this project and how you can help them in the future. Use this information to help you grow as a manager, while also creating a more supportive atmosphere for your team altogether.

3. Celebrate The Closure Of The Project As A Team

   Celebrating with your team each time a project comes to an end is an essential aspect of building a strong rapport. This will let them share in the success their work brought, and reaffirm to your team that you recognize their hard work. By celebrating with them, you are also showing them that you view yourself as part of the team, and not just their manager, which creates higher levels of respect and team responsibility. Celebrating a successful project also helps build strong colleague relationships which benefits future projects and aids in future collaboration between members.

   This final act of closure will send the project off on a positive note, setting your team up for success in their next project.

Your Comprehensive Project Closeout Checklist

While the aspects of your project closure checklist may vary, we’ve compiled a comprehensive list of items to include in your next closure plan. These will help you create a strong set of processes to support your next project.

• Review your project (in comparison to outline and expectations)
• Get individual signatures on team deliverables
• Run final tests to flush out any errors
• Create functionality reports from project testing
• Respond to any red flags discovered during testing
• Collect final deliverables
• Create client invoice
• Hand-off deliverables
• Get the client to verify the deliverables and their contents
• Have the client sign off on the project
• Closeout any project documentation

  • Project contracts
  • Resource allocation
  • Budget approvals
  • Contractor fees
  • Team salaries
  • Issue logs
  • etc.
• Hold project closure meeting
• Complete a Q&A including all team members
• Create learning documents
• Recognize exceptional work done by your team
• Set accountability reviews & meetings
• Celebrate as a team!