When you think of best practice, it can be defined as the most efficient (least amount of effort) and effective (best results) way of accomplishing a task, based on repeatable procedures that have proven themselves over time for large numbers of people. Wikipedia defines best practice as a technique, method, process, activity, incentive, or reward that is believed to be more effective at delivering a particular outcome than any other technique, method, process, etc. when applied to a particular condition or circumstance.
Naturally, in the domain of Project Managementmany standard practices have evolved into best practices over time. It is after all about developing and following a standard way of doing things!
In the Infographic below, you will find a reminder of 10 PM best practices that will help you be more successful on all your projects in a consistent and predictable way, with compliments from Wrike project management softwares.
This article is aimed at existing project managers who use a scheduling tool like MS Project, or similar to plan their projects and then to execute against the plan.
Use the validation template once the Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) is transferred to a scheduling tool. The purpose is to validate that the project schedule contains all the necessary WBS elements to complete a project successfully.
#1 Deliverables
Are the key deliverables shown at the highest level of the WBS? If you do all of the detail tasks, will you have completely accomplished the summary deliverable?
#2 Scope and breakdown
Does the WBS represent the entire scope of the project and is it set at the appropriate level for the size and type of project?
#3 Milestones
Are there enough milestones identified and checkpoints when moving from one phase to the next?
#4 Governance
Are governance tasks separated out into their own section? Is there sufficient project management time across entire project?
#5 Structure
Does the WBS map to a methodology and does it make sense within that context?
#6 Estimates
Did the person who is most familiar with the task estimate the task itself? Check the accuracy of the task after the work had been performed.
#7 Risk
Did you document any risks for the tasks?
#8 Dependencies
Are the task dependencies implemented with the correct logic? Does the overall sequence of phases/deliverables make sense?
#9 Resources
Have all the resources been identified in the resource sheet? Is there any duplication of resources? Are all resources named completely and consistently using a naming convention?
#10 Tasks, assignments, durations
Are there any assignments on summary tasks? Does each detail task have at least one human resource assigned?
Final validation
It is always a good practice to have your schedule reviewed by an independent party or a senior architect not part of the planning team.
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When you think of best practice, it can be defined as the most efficient (least amount of effort) and effective (best results) way of accomplishing a task, based on repeatable procedures that have proven themselves over time for large numbers of people. Wikipedia defines best practice as a technique, method, process, activity, incentive, or reward that is believed to be more effective at delivering a particular outcome than any other technique, method, process, etc. when applied to a particular condition or circumstance.
