Implementing a new business idea poses a significant challenge that requires proper preparation. Therefore, before starting a new project, it’s crucial to focus on several key aspects to ensure its success and mitigate the risk of failure.
This article will guide you through seven indispensable steps integral for effective project planning. Each of these steps serves as a cornerstone, fortifying the structural integrity of your project. I trust these guidelines will give you the knowledge necessary for a successful launch.
1. Conduct Comprehensive Market Research
Before diving into any new project, start with comprehensive market research. This research should begin with analyzing vital elements such as the latest trends, innovations, and regulations in your industry. These insights can give you a peek into potential market opportunities and the associated risks and even assist you in evaluating the feasibility of your project.
The next phase involves validating service or product demand among potential clients. Remember that just because a single client expressed an interest doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll find a larger audience quickly.
So, you need to align this information with the broader market. An accurate demand analysis will allow you to verify if that specific client’s needs align with those of your target audience.
Your next move should be competitor analysis. Examining firms offering similar products or services will help you understand market trends, customer expectations, and potential areas where you can differentiate yourself. Maybe you can represent your offers in visuals, like laptop mockups.
How do you begin? It’s as simple as searching online for similar products or services. If you’re keen on a more in-depth analysis, you might want to go further than a basic web search.
You can use tools like the competitor finder by SE Ranking, which uses targeted keywords to detect competitors, providing a more strategic approach to competitor research and comprehensive business insights.
Moreover, equipped with information such as estimated monthly clicks, traffic cost, top-performing keywords, and most profitable ads, you’ll be well-prepared to optimize both your site and your paid and organic marketing efforts to achieve the best possible results.
Competitive Research Tool of SE Ranking shows detailed data on competitor’s website
Lastly, remember the power of networking within your industry. Getting involved in relevant industry networks and groups (for instance, on social media) can provide invaluable insights.
Thanks to the information shared within these communities, you can gain insights into upcoming competitor new projects or initiatives that may not be publicly known, giving you an edge in project planning.
2. Undertake Thorough Project Analysis
The next step in starting a new project involves conducting an in-depth analysis of the project itself.
To do this, you should prepare a business case explaining why the project is necessary and its benefits upon completion. This will allow you to show the project’s business value and why specific resources, such as budget, equipment, or team members’ time, are needed.
Start by analyzing whether your idea is technically feasible. To ascertain this, engage in discussions with those responsible for its technical execution. After that, determine the approximate timeline and resources required for its implementation.
That information lets you prepare a detailed financial analysis, including the project’s estimated Return on Investment (ROI). This data can also be helpful during subsequent stages, such as stakeholder discussions. Only if you are confident that the execution cost will yield a return does your project stand a chance at success.
But that’s not all. Aside from finances, even if the idea seems profitable, it may not entirely align with your company’s business direction. It’s worth analyzing your company’s goals and development plans to ensure your project coincides with the direction of your company.
Once all the above elements are in place, it’s time to identify any potential risks that could impact the project’s success. These should then be thoroughly assessed, and a risk management plan should be prepared to prevent surprises during project execution.
The thorough analysis described above will assist you in making an informed decision about continuing the project and ensuring its successful execution.
3. Define Project Objectives and Scope
Setting realistic and measurable goals is essential to create a successful project while clearly defining the project’s boundaries. Therefore, the third step focuses on clarifying the purpose and expected results of the project.
At this stage, critical factors to focus on include:
- Project Scope: This defines what you aim to achieve and what is not included. It’s a plan that outlines the project’s goals based on what was determined in the previous steps – the needs of customers, market trends, and team insights.
- Budget: This is the project’s financial forecast, considering the scope and resources required to reach the project’s objectives.
- Timeline: A roadmap that details the different phases of the project and the estimated completion time for each.
Once you have prepared these points, divide the overall project goals into smaller groups of tasks with defined key results. It’s a good practice to rank these tasks in order of importance and dependencies, along with a system for corrective action if individual roadmap milestones aren’t met on time.
Next, it’s time to identify key stakeholders such as management, project sponsors, or cross-functional teams. In other words, anyone who influences the project’s results. You must present your project to them with the specifics you prepared earlier.
After all the above steps have been taken, you can move on to planning the scope of work. Prepare this as a formal document outlining the scope of the project’s required deliverables. Define all project milestones and the projected schedule for completion.
4. Identify a Potential Team
Once you have defined specific tasks and objectives for the project, it’s time to plan the ideal team structure needed to succeed. Here are the most critical aspects to consider when selecting individuals for your team:
- Skills: What tasks will each person need to perform?
- Experience: What projects or assignments have they worked on before, and do they have experience with the tasks you want to assign to them?
- Stakeholders: What will collaboration between team members and project stakeholders look like? How will they communicate?
- Availability: Do they have enough time to dedicate to this project? Budget: Is the cost of each individual’s work consistent with the budget you’ve planned for this project?
Remember, you won’t be able to carry out this stage on your own. You should touch base with each department’s leader to ensure that specific people’s involvement is even possible. It would be good practice to organize a quick meeting with the leaders to discuss the project, its outcomes, and their help defining resource requirements.
Once you have chosen the team, it’s time to organize a meeting with them. This allows for an early group meeting, where you can set and manage expectations from the very beginning. Some important aspects to discuss during this meeting might include the following:
- How does the team want to work?
- What tools do they want to use?
- What regular internal meetings should the team plan?
- How and when should the team collect feedback from clients or stakeholders?
- How does the team want to communicate with the client or stakeholders?
By doing this, you’ll be able to work out the ideal form of collaboration and achieve success together.
5. Create a Project Plan with a Timeline
Developing a comprehensive project plan with well-defined outcomes, milestones, and timelines is essential. It involves dividing the project into manageable tasks, assigning responsibilities, and setting realistic deadlines. At the same time, you should formulate a communication plan to foster effective collaboration.
Let’s get down to specifics. After preparing the main points of the project and gathering feedback from everyone closely related to it, it’s crucial to establish certain expectations regarding its progression.
This stage involves substantial negotiation and documentation, essentially serving as the pre-planning phase of the project.
This stage is primarily about defining stakeholder involvement. Whether it’s about a client or internal stakeholders, clarifying who will perform tasks, signing off on deliverables, and reviewing or providing feedback are critical. It significantly streamlines the entire workflow.
Next, it’s time to define outcomes. Of course, you should have already described the key objectives earlier, but now is the time to focus on the details, delve deeper, and define them within specific boundaries. Define measurable expected results for each task and assign them to individuals involved. It’s also worthwhile to appoint owners for each key result who will oversee the execution of smaller tasks by various team members.
To better visualize the workflow with the team, it’s also worth constructing a timeline. This approach ensures team members understand their contribution, personal priorities, and deadlines for completing specific outcomes. Furthermore, it also informs stakeholders about the projected completion of the project.
On the Internet, you will find a mass of ready-made tools and templates that will help you prepare the best timeline for your project.
It’s worth expanding the timeline into a more detailed project schedule, which is a document that, in addition to the timeline, also considers the organizational resources required for each task and other critical team management information. Here are a few tips for creating this document:
- Divide the project phases into individual tasks and activities.
- Determine dependencies between tasks.
- Set the order of actions.
- Estimate the required resources and duration for each task.
It’s worth using ready-made project management tools like Paymo to manage such a schedule, prioritize your work, order tasks in a logical sequence, and more.
Example of Kanban Board view
6. Proactively Address and Navigate Change
Before starting a new project, it is essential to acknowledge that changes will likely occur throughout its progression. These changes are a natural part of nearly every project, given the rapidly evolving nature of the industry and market landscapes.
Changes are a natural part of nearly every project, given the rapidly evolving nature of the industry and market landscapes.
The first step in this proactive approach is to identify any potential threats or roadblocks that might prevent you or your team from achieving your goals. It could range from a scarcity of resources to unforeseen technical challenges.
Next, it is wise to devise a comprehensive process to address these possible situations if they emerge during the project’s duration. A contingency plan at your disposal facilitates the practical identification and resolution of problems and ensures that the project proceeds seamlessly despite any unexpected obstacles.
However, managing change isn’t exclusively about reacting to potential risks or roadblocks. It also encompasses adjusting to fluctuating market trends and technological advancements.
Project manager presenting a plan for a new project to the coworkers. Image by DCStudio on Freepik.
So, how can you effectively manage these changes? Firstly, it’s prudent to devise a robust change management strategy. This strategy is integral to minimizing potential risks, maintaining focus on the project, and ensuring that the project’s objectives are successfully met.
To create this strategy, start by asking questions like:
- What potential changes, both external and internal, might occur during the project?
- What might be the causes of these changes?
- How could these changes impact the project’s schedule, deliverables, and resources?
Develop a strategy to manage these changes based on the answers to these questions. It could include assigning responsibilities, adjusting schedules or deliverables, or reallocating resources. Also, consider how to communicate and implement these changes effectively within the plan.
Finally, it’s important to remember that once a change is implemented, its impact on the project should be continually monitored and evaluated. In this ever-changing landscape, being prepared to make further adjustments as necessary is key to completing your project.
Conclusion
Starting a new project is undeniably a complex process, entailing meticulous preparation and the active involvement of numerous stakeholders.
Success hinges on crafting a thorough plan, fostering an environment that is receptive to team feedback, and remaining adaptable to market fluctuations and potential obstacles. Keep in mind that you don’t have to begin from scratch.
The internet offers many handy tips, tools, and ready-made templates that can streamline the assembly of a comprehensive project plan.
All these resources are at your disposal, ready to catalyze your project planning journey. Good luck!
First published on June 23, 2023.
Natalia Piskorovska
Author
Natalia is a Marketing Specialist at SE Ranking. She loves being involved in content creation and promotion. In her spare time, Natalia never misses a chance to have a good conversation with someone over a cup of coffee!
