New Project? Here's What to Do Before You Start Doing

You’re asked to take over a project. You get a brief from the sponsor or a key stakeholder about what needs to be achieved—and off you go. 

If you’re lucky, you also get an expected timeline and a few milestones. Maybe even a high-level prioritization. Something like: “We want to achieve A as soon as possible, and then move forward with B.”

If you’re in this situation, please don’t jump the gun and rush straight into achieving that first milestone. Take some time to prepare the work before executing the work. I promise you this will pay off later. How? Less rework, higher impact, better collaboration, and more engagement.

Here’s a checklist I use to improve the odds of success and make the most of people’s brainpower, time, and energy. Everything is organized in the order I typically follow, with a simple prioritization to help you decide what to skip when time is tight:

We’re going to use the following tags: Must Have (MH) and Nice to Have (NTH)

• (MH) Define the vision or end state
• (MH) Align on what success looks like for the project
• (NTH) Map stakeholders
• (NTH) Identify trade-offs and prioritization criteria
• (NTH) Map risks and assumptions

Once you’ve done this, align with your key stakeholders. You want shared agreement on how decisions will be made—this speeds things up later.

If you already know which roles you’ll need, bring those people in now. Share what you’ve prepared and co-create the following:

• (NTH) A customer journey, process map, or value stream map – current and future state
• (MH) Skills matrix
• (MH) High-level roadmap
• (NTH) OKRs – for the full project and at least the first quarter

Then, go back to your stakeholders. Make sure everyone relevant is on the same page about what you aim to deliver in the short term.

You should now have a good idea of who you need. Secure time with them, onboard them, and walk them through what you’ve done so far. Ask for feedback. Leave space for them to shape things—this increases buy-in.

(NTH) Talk about the behaviors you want to see in the team. My personal favorites:

• We all share ownership of the work to be done
• We are accountable to our peers, not to a boss
• We all share the same goal—no hidden agendas or conflicting bonuses
• We do whatever the team needs from us and stay flexible in our roles
• We don’t have internal hierarchies
• We practice emergent leadership—anyone can lead when the situation calls for it

(MH) Co-create a governance: decide how often you’ll meet, what each meeting is for, etc.

(MH) Create working agreements around work management and team dynamics. Decide where you’ll track the work in progress and which tools you’ll use.If you’re running in sprints and using Scrum, the first sprint planning will be your kick-off event. Make sure you have well-refined work items for the team to start with in the first iteration. If not, then the primary focus for the new team is refining the backlog and coming up with initiatives and work items to achieve the first milestone in the roadmap or your first quarter OKR.

You're good to go! Good luck with your new project 🚀 This list is obviously incomplete—there’s always something to improve. What else do you do? What’s something you don’t do? 

*Source: PMI Pulse of the Profession® 2024 report