Good project management is essential to staying organized. I’m not a fan of jargon and industry specific nomenclature, so here is a basic guide as to what it takes to really manage a project.

To start, what is a “project”? Simply put, it’s a grouping of activities that result in an end result. Getting your kids out the door to school can be a project, as can shopping, or building a website. Planning a wedding is a great real life example of a project (a REALLY big one!) so let’s use that for our case study. Here’s what you need to know:

First, make a complete task list: List everything, and I mean everything, you can think of that needs to be done, small and big. The minister, the church, the reception, the honeymoon flight arrangements, the shoes, the flowers, the dress, your attendants, buying your lacey negligee, etc., etc., etc.

Once you have the list, you can then group the smaller items under bigger ones. For example, the honeymoon would be the main topic and tasks like make flight arrangements, get passports, book the hotel, pack your suitcase would be sub tasks underneath it. By grouping you can not only see it all and be complete, but it also helps you see what you could delegate off. Delegating big chunks of your work is a way to get more done faster. Hiring a wedding planner is a great example of doing this. You hire someone to manage all the task groupings.

Set a proposed budget: This can be a money budget, a time budget, a resource budget, or all of the above. You need to be as accurate as you can. If a caterer normally charges $50 a plate for what you want to have, budgeting $5 per plate is just silly. Sure you might expect some discount, but don’t build your budget based on getting screaming deals that would make your grandmother blush in embarassment. Relationships need to be honored. Your partners are people who are feeding their familes and sending their kids to college just like anyone else. An honest pay for honest work is fair. Violating this will come back to bite you later on. I am not suggesting that you let yourself be taken advantage of, but if you’ve pushed so hard on the front end, you will have no goodwill left on the back end when you need it.

Next, set the preferred desired date for completion: This would be the day of the wedding, when everything needs to be completed. Much like catching a train, once you set the steps in motion for such a big event it’s relatively difficult (and expensive) to adjust the date, so either things get done on time or they don’t get done. You will be able to readily see, once you do the next step, if this desired date is reasonable. If it is, you can set the final date. If not, you either change the date, or alter the list of tasks you expect to have completed by that date. There’s no getting around this and it’s important to be realistic. Being late to the chapel just simply isn’t an option.

From this first proposed desired date, we back out all of the needed tasks: What I mean by that is, if it takes 10 weeks for your custom designer dress to be made, fitted, and ready, then you have to have that dress decision made no later than 10 weeks from the wedding date. If it takes 3 week to schedule the cake tasting and 3 more weeks for the cake to be ready, then you have to allow a minimum of 6 weeks from the wedding date for that task to be done.

Add some slack: When a task is crucial, it’s foolish to play things to the wire. Don’t overpad, but allowing 10-15% time allowance for the unexpected to happen is a good idea, because the unexpected will. No amount of diva bridezilla behavior is going to change anything when a hurricane shuts down the dress factory that is making your dress. Even if you’re accustomed to pushing to get your way, time is stubborn and has a way of pushing back. Adding some slack to your plan helps out.

Set priorities: Now, you take the task list and identify the drop dead, must have items. You are not getting married if the groom and minister doesn’t show or if you don’t get the marriage license. Those are must haves. The bubble machine with matching clown is not. Identifying must haves vs. nice to haves helps if you have to go to plan B or if you have to make an unexpected adjustment. It also keeps you focused and on time and on track. And, no, everything is not priority one. Give up that idea. It’s simply not true.

Setting priorities also includes identifying items that depend on another. For example, you can’t expect your bouquets to show up on wedding day if you never visited the florist (well, unless you were smart enough to tell someone else to handle it…). These dependencies are crucial, because if the first thing doesn’t get done on time, it cascades down the schedule to everything that depends on it. Be sure you are aware of these relationships so you can make adjustments as needed.

Implement, Adjust, and Enjoy: As you go through your plan, joyfully check off your completes. As you have schedule pushout in your completions, make the needed adjustments, always looking to see if something high in priority is in jeopardy of not getting done. Even though in this example it might be hard to stay flexible, in most cases, you can do that. Keeping your eyes on the true purpose of the project in the first place - in this case to marry the person you love - is the way to not only enjoy the result but also to enjoy the journey. You might only get married once but most projects will include people you want to work with again. Respect, realistic expectations, kind yet firm actions, and a sense of humor will go a long way to making this project and all the future ones successful.

Together, we are stronger.
Vicki Flaugher, the original SmartWoman