Page 95 - Budgeting for Managers

Budgeting for Managers
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The Six Keys to Project Success
If a project manager does these six things well, the project
is sure to succeed!
1. Communicate. Listen to everyone involved. Learn what each per-
son wants and what matters to him or her.Talk to everyone. Keep
everyone informed and focused on the goal.
2. Organize, coordinate, and plan everything. Create a written proj-
ect overview and work plan.
3. Create a detailed work plan. Our schedule and budget come from
this.
4. Use written change control. If anything changes, write it down and
make sure everyone knows. Otherwise, you may end up creating a
product with the head of a horse and the tail of a donkey. (And
guess what you’ll look like in the end!)
5. Ensure high quality. Make sure everyone does good work and
delivers on time.
6. Follow through with quality. Deliver to the customers and make
sure that everything works and that they’re smiling.
know the answer, ask them who does or if they can find
out.
3. Write up what you have and show it to everyone in draft
form. Make sure they understand that you want more sug-
gestions and any corrections.
4. Write up their replies. Create a final project overview.
Resolve any disagreements.
5. Get approval.

If you do this, your Quick Project Overview (QPO) will look
something like the top half of Table 5-3 (pages 79-84) which is
a QPO for a quarterly newsletter for a small business.
We complete the QPO by creating the work plan and then
estimating our budget.

Create the Work Plan
In a project, the budget and schedule are created from the work
plan. Until we know what we’re doing, we can’t know how much
it will cost or how long it will take. A good work plan is the basis