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Project management tutorial

Managing your digital media project is one of the most important and often overlooked aspects of the development process. You will find that effort you put into planning, scheduling, and organizing your project will pay off enormously. Here we'll outline some proven techniques for planning, scheduling, and completing your project.

A project has five phases. Here's a brief summary of each:

Initiation
Articulate your vision for the project, establish goals, assemble your team, and define expectations and the scope of your project.

Planning
Refine the scope, identify specific tasks and activities to be completed, and develop a schedule and budget.

Executing
Accomplish your goals by leading your team, solving problems, and building your project.

Controlling
Monitor changes to the project, make corrections, adjust your schedule to respond to problems, or adjust your expectations and goals.

Closing
Deliver your project to your audience, acknowledge results, and assess its success. Take the time to compose a written evaluation of the project and the development effort.

The middle three phases are not sequential. You will find that you are constantly planning, executing, and controlling your project as necessary.

Aren't these phases really just common sense? In many ways, yes. But keep in mind that software development, whether a few Web pages or a complex CD-ROM, is a complex, unpredictable process. Most software projects (something like 80 percent) are delivered late, substantially over budget, and incomplete. The more effort you put into managing your project, the more you increase your chances of success.

The last item is especially dangerous for software projects. It is impossible to create a Web site that successfully serves all students, all faculty, all staff, and the general public, since these groups have very different needs and goals. Let's develop a clear focus, beginning with initiation and articulating goals:

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