The word “startup” is everywhere these days and while it might seem like this is just a new buzzword for a business model that has existed since the dawn of commerce. Startups are a particular way of doing business. Most businesses are structured around what is known as a “linear process,” which often involves working on one project after another, with no overlap. On the other hand, startups are organized around a series of overlapping projects. This helps ensure that work is progressing promptly and that all necessary resources are being adequately utilized in each step of the process. This means that every team member involved must be 100% behind the project and understand it perfectly before executing it. Any misunderstandings could cause many headaches down the line. To that end, here are six important things that you should be telling your team before each new project.
1. Identify Stakeholders
This is an essential step in the project cycle because the project stakeholders identified in this step significantly impact who will run the project and benefit from it. Determining who the project stakeholders are can help ensure that your project is on the right track and working with the right team.
2. What The Project Is About
Once you have identified and told your team about who the main stakeholders are, the next step is to inform them about the actual project. This is vital to ensure that everyone is on the same page and understands the bigger picture of what it is about.
Describe Your Deliverables
Your team should know what the project is and what they will need to deliver. By telling them what the company expects the project to achieve in terms of product and profit.
Who The End User Is
By knowing who the target market will be, your team will be in a far better position to create the product within the guidelines set out.
Risk Factors
Your team must understand what risks are involved as the project progresses. This could be what might happen in a time or financial overrun, or How they might need to pivot if a competitor beats you to market.
Has It Been Attempted Before?
If you are aware of a product or service similar to this new project, you need to let your team know about it. This will benefit the team as they can see what the other product did right and what it did wrong. By learning this information, you will ultimately end up with a superior result.
3. Establish A Timeline
The task of creating a project timeline can be overwhelming. It takes skill and experience to create a timeline that works and is easy to understand. This is the reason why so many projects fail or are way over budget. The things you need to consider include:
- When work will begin.
- What the deadline is.
- Where the key targets are placed on the work calendar.
- Who is responsible for meeting the targets?
- Why the objectives are on those particular dates.
4. What Are The Objectives And Desired Outcomes
For successful completion, you will need to be clear about what the expected objectives are and what the outcomes should be. Your team will have to understand the overarching aim of this project. For example, is the objective to disrupt a market? Or is it to keep users sticking with the company via incremental updates? Or it could be to boost income so that the company can reinvest in other new products. Objectives vary wildly, and the intended outcomes can change depending on if your team understands. Whatever the main goal might be, it is vital to tell your group directly to create something in line with the desired outcome of the business.
Who Will Do What
As the project manager of a software development project, you’ll be in charge of any number of different roles depending on the size and scope of your project. For a small team or a small project, or even for a large project that’s been broken down into discrete phases, a project manager may very well fulfill every role on the team. However, as a project grows in scale and complexity, it becomes increasingly vital to delegate functions to other project members.
Point of Contact
This should be extremely clear, as there will be many moving parts when things start happening. It is essential to let your team know whom they can contact if they need to either delegate tasks or need permission to implement something from a department manager.
Establish Communication Channels
Big or small, all new projects must have communication channels that the entire team can contact. The best option would be to use software to create separate channels to reduce the noise from unrelated departments.
5. How Much Can Be Done In House And How Much Must Be Taken Outside
Depending on the size and abilities of your team, you might need to hire the help of an outside company to supply certain services required to complete the project. Your team will need to know this in advance so they won’t be wasting time on something sourced elsewhere. Startups often use certain highly technical services to get things off the ground. Technological specialists Binarapps state that startups can benefit from using a team of software developers to get the more complex stuff up and running. If you decide to use an outside group of professionals, you should inform your in-house team about who the point of contact will be on their side (or, more likely, who is the go-between in your company).
6. Execution Plan
Once your group is ready to begin the project, you should tell them how you want it to be executed as the owner or director. For example, will it be a friendly endeavor, or are individuals expected to get the job done independently? However you want it to be executed, you should tell your team at the start to prepare.
Designing, setting up, and delivering a project is a complex process with many twists and turns. If you are clear with your team from the beginning about what you expect, the entire process will run smoothly.
