Make Your Projects Work Better

Centralize, Organize, Webatize
Using web-based project management software

Listening to the Committee
How to manage projects through committees

Killing the Voice Inside
Handling criticism at work

Money Can't Buy Good Beginnings
Keeping goals modest and breaking down deliverables is key to success

Adding Space, Makes An Easier Race
Buffering project timelines to ensure project success

Three is the Magic Number
Three overarching phases to the project lifecycle

The Ecstasy and the Agony
Understand that mistakes happen, plan for them and accept them

The Curve in the Road Must Always ...
Managing risk is essential to project management success

Specifications and Documentation
Proper documentation is a key stepping stone to project management

Money Can't Buy Good Beginnings

Keeping goals modest and breaking down deliverables is key to success

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Keep Goals Modest; Break Down Deliverables

This story teaches us an important lesson. When contemplating the beginning of a new project keep your goals modest. Trying to accomplish too much is a major cause of project failure. Breaking down your deliverables and managing their scope is a solid project philosophy that certainly subscribes to the notion that less is more. As we have discussed, when teams gather to implement projects they have a myriad of obstacles to overcome: communication breakdown, miscalculating the time and effort a task will require, Murphy's Law, renegade vendors, and much more. The factor of difficulty grows quickly when a smaller project is transformed into an over ambitious one.

Some experts have found that 60% to 70% of after delivery maintenance costs can be greatly reduced by having a strategy that minimizes mistakes usually caused by over ambitious project deliverables. Keeping your project strategy simple helps insure that your project team makes fewer mistakes. And that means at the end of the day, there will be less to go back and fix, after the final product is delivered to the client. This can help to greatly reduce costs associated with on-going maintenance, saving you big money down the line.

It is the job of the responsible manager to direct the expectations from both below and above in the chain of command. The employees in your stead may not realize the damage that can come from putting too many eggs in their project baskets. Beware of acquiescent workers that offer a "quick yes" to project questions. And management may be pressuring to achieve great, heroic things in relation to deliverables, timelines and budgets. Despite external forces that may be acting upon your projects, communicate and execute a proven strategy: take large-scale projects and break them down into smaller, digestible parts. Giant projects tend to break under their own weight. It is in your best interest to simplify as much as possible, to keep your precious resources from getting lost in a never ending world of perpetual development and implementation.


Vertabase: Web-based Project and Schedule Tracking
Vertabase is a top-rated on-demand project management tool. You get robust project tracking and schedule management features to ensure that goals are managed properly, and deliverables are on-time. Vertabase can help you and your team manage complex projects, with automated email notifications and real-time project tracking reports. Our five-star customer service ensures your implementation of Vertabase will be a success. Vertabase gives you the best approach to project management.