15 Project Management Tips: Ensuring Your Projects Success

There are many factors in Project Management that can influence the success of your project:

• Get feedback! You can’t say you’re successful, if you have no feedback from your customer.
• Can your project be a case study? Only the best projects should be included into your corporate portfolio. If a project is not good enough to be shown to your leads, consider improving your product portfolio. If you have nothing to show, you might need to refine your business approach in a long run.
• Talk to your team members. Is your team satisfied with the project outcome? Your team will be upset about the project failure. Communicate proactively to know the state of the project, don’t wait till the end!

If your project is going into the wrong direction, how do you get your project back on track? First of all, don’t panic!

• Don’t change your goals, change your strategy!
• Review and audit, find your weak points!

The most successful project managers are good team players. Make sure to build a solid & strong team:

• Do not be a boss, be a leader. Inspire, guide, coach and help your colleagues!
• You have to know everything about the project you’re working on. Imagine you are a Sea Captain. You should be able to temporarily replace almost any team member.
• Your team should teach you more than you teach them. People you’re working with are an invaluable source for fresh ideas, recent trends and new perspectives. Always listen to your colleagues’ ideas and thoughts.

While working on project of any scale, strive to keep to the highest corporate standards:

• Always manage scope, time, resources, and costs.
• Quality should be the top priority.

If you want your SAP project (as a business transformation project by itself) to be successful, the following important and critical factors have to be considered:

• Make sure to involve Customer’s Senior Management into the whole project lifecycle. All SAP projects are devoted to business processes transparency, standardization and operational excellence. Only the highest-level executives can drive strategic changes and improvements of such scale in a company;
• Get the best of the best employees of the Customer to work on the project. Only the most experienced, proactive and competent business experts can help the company to run company business better (on a SAP platform, of course ;)
• Remember: “Everything that can be invented has been invented” before us. This is a crucial mindset whenever you think of any deviations from standard SAP functionality, which is based on the best practices of the industry leaders;
• Follow the ASAP Methodology! In conjunction with the appropriate tools (e.g., Solution Manager) this approach empowers you to making big projects successful as well as managing possible risks proactively during the long implementation process;
• Trust your people. If you followed our previous tips, you have the best talents involved into the project already. Just give them as much responsibility as they can handle. Don’t push your team. Offer your help when needed. Always remember: One Team, One Goal!

If you found these Project Management Tips useful or if you can share some PM tips from your own practice, please leave your comment below and get quoted in our next article on Project Management!