| Among all the tools at our disposal for managing | | | | 7. Has a credible schedule with identifiable critical path |
| projects, checklists are perhaps the simplest and most | | | | and late schedule been developed from the WBS and |
| productive means of building consistency in work | | | | optimized within the project constraints? |
| practices. Checklists are useful in almost every field of | | | | 8. Have milestones been included in the schedule to |
| human endeavor, and in particular where repeatability | | | | track major events, completed phases and/or |
| and systematic action drive performance. Yet they | | | | deliverables and external dependencies? |
| are still much under-used in the planning and managing | | | | 9. Have workload commitments been identified for |
| of projects. | | | | each week of the project and agreed to by team |
| Here is a high level twelve-point checklist for use during | | | | members and their managers? |
| project planning: | | | | 10. Have response plans been developed for the most |
| | | | significant threats to project success? |
| 1. Have the needs and concerns of all key | | | | 11. Has a change management process been defined |
| stakeholders been considered and resolved? | | | | and agreed to by all key stakeholders? |
| 2. Does the project have an overall approved mission | | | | 12. Has the governance structure for the project been |
| statement defining the scope, schedule and resources | | | | established with an agreed sponsorship role and |
| budget? | | | | expectations set for review frequency and format? |
| 3. Has the relative flexibility among scope, schedule, | | | | One of the features of checklists is that they can be |
| resources and budget been determined? | | | | designed to extend hierarchically, such that a |
| 4. Have all project deliverables been identified and | | | | sub-checklist could be developed to facilitate any or all |
| described in detail with unambiguous completion | | | | of the checks above (e.g. a stakeholder analysis |
| criteria? | | | | checklist or a risk management checklist). The PMI, |
| 5. Are roles and responsibilities defined and agreed | | | | training firms and PMOs would do well to promote |
| upon for all project team members? | | | | checklists more strongly - project managers like to use |
| 6. Has an appropriately detailed work breakdown | | | | checklists; not many want to read through an |
| structure been created with input from key team | | | | overweight methodology. And managers like checklists |
| members? | | | | because they improve quality and instill consistency. |