Welcome back. We just learned about the core tasks that need to be completed in the first two phases of the project life cycle, initiating the project and making plans. Now, it's time to put your plans into action. Remember, it's not your job to actually do all the tasks. Your primary job as the project manager is to manage the progress of the project as a whole. This means you'll oversee your team's efforts and make sure everyone understands what's expected of them, what tasks need to be done, and how and when to complete those tasks. It's also your job to help remove any obstacles and to alert the right people if it looks like there might be a delay to the project. This means you'll need to communicate with your team, and anyone else involved in your project through meetings, written communications like memos, emails or internal chat tools, and other working documents like task reports. Quick pro tip, if in doubt, err on the side of overcommunication. As your project progresses you'll make adjustments to the schedule, budget, and allocation of resources, clearly communicating updates all along the way. When all the tasks are complete and you've met the project goal, it's time to close the project. This phase is usually overlooked because it's easy to assume that once the project goal has been delivered, everyone can move on. But hold up, there's still a lot that needs to be done. First, check to make sure all tasks have been completed, including any work that was added along the way. Be sure any outstanding invoices have been paid, resources are returned and accounted for, and project documentation has been submitted. Next, and this is very important, get confirmation that the final outcome of your project is acceptable to the people you're delivering it to. It is crucial to your project's success that the person who asked you to manage the project is satisfied with the end result. Once your project has been accepted as meeting its goals, take some time to reflect on what went well and maybe what didn't go so well. This reflection is usually called a retrospective, and it's a chance to note best practices and learn how to manage your project more effectively next time, even if everything went great. The notes from your retrospective are also valuable to the people or organization receiving the end result of the project. That's because they can use that information to inform decisions about their business the next time they consider a project. Now it's time to collect all the project documentation that you created or collected along the way, including all of your plans and reflections, and share the final results of your project with your stakeholders. Remember, stakeholders are people who are interested in and affected by the project's completion and success. Depending on the type of project, stakeholders could include a department or organization's management team, clients or customers of your product or service, users of your new tool or process, or even the community at large if you're planning a community town hall meeting. Pro tip, stakeholders play a huge role in the development, and success of your project. You'll learn a lot more about these key players later on. But for now, just know that they're like the VIPs of your project. Next, take some time to celebrate the effort your team invested in the project. Celebrations help people feel good about the work they've done, and think of the work as uplifting and rewarding because it truly is. Some ideas for small celebrations are a company or team-wide email, thanking the team and acknowledging individual efforts. Now for big projects, you may even consider a company party to celebrate the team and the project success. To wrap up, you and your team can formally move on from the project so that you can pursue new projects in the future. Well, as you can see, being a project manager is a lot of work, but it's very rewarding, and it's all, well, manageable when you follow through with the project life cycle. You can see how the organization, communication, and improvements you add to various areas of a project can make the entire team more effective and efficient, and you can have an impact on many areas of a project in a way that's greater than if you focused on any one task on the project. Similar to a coach with a sports team, even though you aren't actually playing a direct role in the game, your guidance, your communication, and your team-building can make the difference in a happy, high-performing, and successful team. In later courses we'll discuss each of these project phases, and you'll learn methods, techniques, and tools to help you. For now, we just want you to become familiar with the general project management process, and we'll share some of the terms and concepts used in the field that you'll need to know as you develop your project management skills. Up next, we'll introduce you to two of the more popular project methodologies, Waterfall and Agile. See you soon.
