In May I started a series of short articles that were to form a Project Management Guide - a very simple one. Honestly I thought I'd be finished by now! Where has the last six weeks gone?! Anyway I am back and determined to get it finished in the next few weeks. However no promises this time! This next article is all about getting the project started. This first step we break into the following three sub-steps:

• (i) Get the Project Approved and Resources Allocated
• (ii) Decide the Project Management Process
• (iii) Create a Collaborative Project Site

(i) Get the Project Approved and Resources Allocated

The first task is to ensure that you have approval to proceed with the project. You might say we should not be too formal about this step and that you should just start the project. You might say that it is easier to ask forgiveness than permission! In some cases you will be correct! In many cases you will have to ask permission in order to proceed - otherwise you will not have the resources allocated that you need for the project. However in all or the vast majority of cases you owe it to your colleagues and to your management to let them know you are about to start a new project. They may have great input for you. They may have extra resources and budget to allocate. You should exit this step with the approval to proceed and with the necessary resources allocated.

(ii) Decide the Project Management Process

As they say - be careful what you ask for - you just might get it! Now you have a project approved and you need to decide how to manage the project. You need to decide how much rigor or process you will apply. You are now deciding how much project management you will apply to the project. As depicted in the diagram below some projects require a lighter touch and some require much more project management.

Your organization may have guidelines or templates for certain project types which will make this step easier as you will be selecting an approach already defined and then perhaps tailoring it. This will naturally enough make your life easier - as long as the local guidelines are sensible! We have found that some local guidance expects way too much project management for two main reasons - the project manager does not have that much experience or the project does not deserve this much project management.

If you do not have local guidance then you can look at it as selecting from these project management items and deciding which ones you need for your project. In a very simplistic way you are selecting what project management processes to use for your project from a long list like this one:

• Project Statement / Project Definition / Project Charter
• Team and Role and Responsibility Definition
• Goals
• Change Requests
• Action / Task list
• Formal Work Breakdown Structure
• Documents / Deliverables
• Risks
• Issues
• Meetings Agenda and Minutes and Actions
• Status Reports
• Contacts
• Discussions
• Decisions
• Emails
• Shared Knowledge
• Process and Procedures
• Lessons Learned

This is not meant to be "the definitive" list - but it is a good one to get you started thinking. What we are talking about here is which project management items will you use formally and informally. For example you might decide to have an issues list and not manage risks formally in a list. However this does not mean you will not naturally carry our risk management. You may well consider and take actions to mitigate against risks in your own mind but it will probably not be documented and communicated and you are certainly not committing to do so. Here you are deciding in the main what project management you will sign up for - what you will make transparent to yourself and possibly others.

(iii) Create a Collaborative Project Site

This guide assumes a collaborative project management approach. It assumes you as Project Manager do not wish to be the dictator. It assumes you want the team members and stake holders to know what has happened and what should happen, so that they are empowered to help on the project. This guide also assumes that you will want to setup a collaborative site to share this information. There are so many free collaborative site options available today that this is no longer a big assumption. We at BrightWork started using Lotus Notes back in 1995 for our projects but since 2000 we have been using SharePoint. And as most of you know SharePoint also has a free version - Microsoft SharePoint Foundation 2010 - so you have no excuses! Get collaborative in your project management approach!

Naturally enough the site you setup needs to mirror the approach to project management that you will undertake. Below is a diagram using some of our BrightWork templates that will give you some ideas. For example on the left hand side you are managing a project by merely tracking the problems or issues and on the right hand side you are managing everything that you can think of! Needless to say you can start out with one approach and later modify as the project needs dictate.