Just want to share the slides that I prepared for reference of other people who might need to do a LMS presentation.

Credit to Epignosis for my original content reference during the preparation of this material.

These goals are generic to all industries and all types of projects. Regardless of your level of experience in project management, set these 5 goals for every project you manage.

Goal 1: To finish on time

This is the oldest but trickiest goal in the book. It’s the most difficult because the requirements often change during the project and the schedule was probably optimistic in the first place.

To succeed, you need to manage your scope very carefully. Implement a change control process so that any changes to the scope are properly managed.

Always keep your plan up to date, recording actual vs. planned progress. Identify any deviations from plan and fix them quickly.

Goal 2: To finish under budget

To make sure that your project costs don’t spiral, you need to set a project budget at the start to compare against. Include in this budget, all of the types of project costs that will accrue, whether they are to do with people, equipment, suppliers or materials. Then work out how much each task in your plan is going to cost to complete and track any deviations from this plan.

Make sure that if you over-spend on some tasks, that you under-spend on others. In this way, you can control your spend and deliver under  budget.

Goal 3: To meet the requirements

The goal here is to meet the requirements that were set for the project  at the start. Whether the requirements were to install a new IT system, build a bridge or implement new processes, your project needs to produce solutions which meet these requirements 100%.

The trick here is to make sure that you have a detailed enough set of requirements at the beginning. If they are ambiguous in any way, then what was initially seen as a small piece of work could become huge, taking up valuable time and resources to complete.

Goal 4: To keep customers happy

You could finish your project on time, under budget and have met 100% of the requirements—but still have unhappy customers. This is usually because their expectations have changed since the project started and have not been properly managed.

To ensure that your project sponsor, customer and other stakeholders are happy at the end of your project, you need to manage their expectations carefully. Make sure you always keep them properly informed of progress. “Keep it real” by giving them a crystal clear view of progress to date. Let them voice their concerns or ideas regularly. Tell them upfront when you can’t deliver on time, or when a change needs to be made. Openness and honesty are always the best tools for setting customer expectations.

Goal 5: To ensure a happy team

If you can do all of this with a happy team, then you’ll be more than willing to do it all again for the next project. And that’s how your staff will feel also. Staff satisfaction is critical to your project’s success.

So keep your team happy by rewarding and recognizing them for their successes. Assign them work that complements their strengths and conduct team building exercises to boost morale. With a happy motivated team, you can achieve anything!

And there you have it. The 5 goals you need to set yourself for every project.

Of course, you should always work smart to achieve these goals more easily.

Jason Westland has 15 years experience in the project management industry. From his experience he has created software to help speed up the management process. If you would like to find out more information about Jason’s online project management software visit ProjectManager.com.

Take these top tips to improve your writing skills:

Keep it simple
Great writers can cover whole topics in just a few short paragraphs. To do this, you need to remove any surplus content, clutter and jargon and write in simple, plain terms that everyone understands. That way, your documents will be quick and easy to read.

Make it focused
To create a powerful project document, you need to focus purely on the topic. This will make your document more persuasive and inspiring to read. So think carefully about the content that your readers expect you to cover. Then list your topics and stick to them. Never write off the topic. If you need to go off topic, then put the content in an Appendix at the end and refer to it.

Have a clear structure
You also need to think carefully about your Table of Contents. Your readers need to be able to scan the Table of Contents to get a quick feel for what your document contains. The Table of Contents should be simple and easy to understand. In your document, you should also:

• Use tables to make it easier to read
• Insert diagrams to explain difficult topics
• Use short paragraphs to accentuate points
• Make use of bolding, italics and underlining
• Use bullets, as they are easily scanned.

Always tell a story
Everyone loves a good story. So write each document as though it was the best story in town. Start with the beginning by introducing your topic and telling them what they are going to learn by reading your document. Then write the main body of the document and end with a conclusion.

Make it flow
Write your document so that each of the sections flow from one topic to the next. This way, the user never has to pause to work out where they are. So before you finish each section, introduce the next section. This helps keep the reader motivated.

Just the right amount
Give your readers “just the right amount of information” needed to make a decision or take an action. Keep it short, but informative and helpful.

Be inspiring

Great writers are passionate about what they are writing. If you are positive and inspirational about your documents, then your reader will catch the excitement and your document will be enjoyable to read.

Jason Westland has worked as a project manger for 15 years. He has a great enthusiasm for project management and which is shown by the books he has published and the value of which his information contains. You can get more information on Jason or his project management templates at method123.

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In light of the economic downturn, many of the companies have started to look inside their organizations on how to better manage their operations and cut costs. But related to operational efficiency, one element that is not being given much attention to is how trust is capitalized to ensure sustainability.

Too often we are inclined to tell people what they want to hear. We get the instant gratification of their approval without thought of its repercussion of how it will come back to us. Communication has been going only from top to bottom because the other direction has been influenced by individual fear of communicating with a person in a higher position. I’ve observed this to be common among our countrymen. Either we are too shy to speak up our minds or we are afraid to go against a common sentiment even if we hold valuable information that could turn the table.

With the current crisis described by some as the worst since the Great Depression, never has the need to be able to adapt instantaneously more imperative. To help in adopting a more open culture, the following recommendation may be useful in practicing transparency and candor in our workplace.

1. Start with your own behavior. Look first into your own behavior then move outward. Set yourself as a role model of how you want others to treat you.
2. Tell the truth. Avoid the impulse of just telling others what they want to hear. Look first into the authenticity of the information you hold instead of just throwing out something for the convenience of getting done with it.
3. Be consistent. Consistency makes people more trusting, even for bad news, than having someone like a salesperson who uses deception just to close a deal.
4. Encourage your people to speak truth to people in higher-ups. It’s extraordinarily difficult for people lower in a hierarchy to tell higher-ups unpalatable truths – but that’s what the higher-ups need to know, because often employees have access to information about problems that they don’t.
5. Admit your mistake and move forward. We are only human and it’s understandable that we sometimes commit mistake. But what turns this situation into a positive event is how we learn from our shortcomings and is able to move forward as a better person.
6. Have an immediate plan of action to correct your action. Translate your new found experience into something tangible. After admitting your shortcoming, have a plan of action of on how to correct it and avoid doing the same mistake.

Quoting from Charles Darwin, “It is not the strongest of species that survive, not the most intelligent, but the most responsive to change.“