The Project Manager's Book of Checklists: Everything You Need to Complete a Project Successfully, Smoothly and on Time

How to use this book 0. Introduction 0.1. Which checklist do you need? A. Managing straightforward tasks 1. Personal work management 1.1 Understanding your workload 1.2 Writing an effective action list to plan your work 1.3 Prioritising your workload 1.4 Removing non-value-adding tasks from your work 1.5 Working to an action list 1.6 Deciding when you need help 1.7 Getting your line manager's support 1.8 Delegating activities 1.9 When and how to say no to a task 2. Managing others' activity 2.1 Defining tasks and setting objectives for others 2.2 Understanding skills and resources needed for a task 2.3 Choosing the right person to do a task 2.4 Checking progress 2.5 Helping someone else to complete a task 2.6 Managing tasks across a team 2.7 Getting someone to do a task when you aren't their line manager 3. Clarifying problems and opportunities 3.1 Identifying problems and opportunities 3.2 Understanding the impact of a problem 3.3 Root cause analysis 3.4 Generating opportunities and solutions 3.5 Exploring ideas 3.6 Choosing between solutions 3.7 Converting ideas into actions B. Managing projects 4. Project selection 4.1 Developing a project business case 4.2 Aligning projects with business needs 4.3 Gaining buy-in for a project 4.4 Is this a project or not? 4.5 Critical success factors for projects 4.6 Project management process checklist 5. Project definition 5.1 Determining project objectives 5.2 Exploring customer needs 5.3 Discovering success criteria 5.4 Defining a project's scope 5.5 Exploring the iron triangle of time-- cost-- quality 5.6 Tips for collecting requirements 5.7 Filtering and prioritising between requirements 5.8 Turning requirements into designs 6. Project initiation 6.1 The project sponsor 6.2 The project manager 6.3 Choosing a project strategy and lifecycle 6.4 Creating plans using work breakdown structures 6.5 Estimating project times and costs 6.6 Identifying the skills, roles and organisation required 6.7 Choosing the project team 6.8 project resources 6.9 Creating a communications plan 6.10 Mobilising a project team and running a kick-off meeting 7. Managing projects 7.1 Tracking progress and writing a progress report 7.2 Running a project status review session 7.3 Managing dependencies 7.4 Contingency plans 7.5 When and how to escalate for help 7.6 Driving performance in a project team 7.7 Identifying and benefiting from quick wins 7.8 Managing third parties on projects 7.9 Dealing with problems -- when and how to change project team members and when to stop a project 7.10 Reducing a project's duration 8. Completing projects and implementing deliverables 8.1 Implementing deliverables 8.2 Testing deliverables 8.3 Accepting project deliverables and gaining sign-off 8.4 Determining when a project is complete 8.5 Releasing project team members 9. Learning from projects 9.1 Determining if a project is successful or not 9.2 Performing a review of a completed project 9.3 Ensuring lessons are learnt 9.4 Improving an organisation's project performance 9.5 Performing project / programme QA 10. Common supporting tools 10.1 Risk management process checklist 10.2 The sources of risk 10.3 Dealing with risks 10.4 Dealing with issues 10.5 Dealing with assumptions 10.6 Change control 10.7 Identifying and managing stakeholders 10.8 Estimating and managing a project budget 10.9 Project performance metrics 10.10 Additional and more advanced project management techniques and tools C. Managing multiple projects 11. Multiple projects 11.1 When to break a project into phases 11.2 Programmes 11.3 Core programme management tasks 11.4 Choosing a programme manager 11.5 Programme reporting 11.6 The needs of big projects or programmes 11.7 Portfolios and portfolio management 11.8 Portfolio reporting 11.9 Choosing the projects for a portfolio 11.10 Understanding human resource constraints and resolving conflicts 12. Managing a project management team 12.1 The function and roles of the project management team 12.2 Sizing and structuring a project management team 12.3 Recruiting project managers 12.4 Setting project management objectives 12.5 Developing project management skills 12.6 Managing and motivating a project management team 12.7 The project management office 12.8 Choosing project management software and tools 12.9 oject managcture D. Achieving results from tasks, projects and programmes 13. Handover and change: changing an organisation a project. 13.1 bsp Preparing for project handover and operational readiness 13.2 Dealing with resistance and support 13.3 Deciding when to go live 13.4 Supporting the organisation during implementation 13.5 Determining when a change is complete and if it is successful 13.6 Critical success factors for change 13.7 Managing multiple changes in parallel 14. Achieving business value from projects 14.1 Identifying benefits 14.2 Measuring and tracking benefits 14.3 Realising project benefits 14.4 Realising benefits across a portfolio 14.5 Linking projects to budgets 14.6 Aligning projects with strategy