The International Community for Project Managers (ICPM)

Projects can often be chaos. To remain focused and achieve success, you need to work in a step-by-step manner. That way, you will have complete control over every action you take. So read on, to learn....

You have a choice in how you manage projects. If you manage in an unstructured fashion, then much of your time will be spent fire fighting and trying to control the project scope. This is known as “project chaos”.

Project Managers are usually assigned to a project after the initiative has already received preliminary approval to proceed. To be sure, the project may end up being cancelled or postponed after the Project Definition is completed. This could be the result of the project costing more than initial estimates, taking longer to complete, having more inherent risk than is acceptable, or not having the right staff available at the right time. However, an organization normally does not get to the point of assigning a Project Manager and proceeding through the planning process if the project did not already pass some sort of business justification and prioritization process.

The following information will assist a Project Manager in completing a Project Definition. This information should be used to supplement the detailed information provided in the Project Definition template itself.

How to start a project? Get a reference point. Whatever it is.

Good chances are that the project is based on an emotional desire. No one wrote a Specification. Some one knows one part of the project, some one else knows another. There's no one 'oracle', no one place which holds the whole information in an ordinated manner. No constant reference point which one can work by, sometimes no one to ask either.

A few years ago I lived in the country side. One night I went out for a run in the fields. The hour was 22:00 and the fields were much vast and dark than I imagined them to be.