women-in-project-management.

ProjectWhisperer·Apr 10, 2021

Posted in:EdTech Solo Founders Social Impact Advice Personal Growth Productivity Society & Culture Startups Tech

The success of your startup depends on the success of your initial projects. Whether you are registering as an LLC or developing your first mobile app, you want to make sure that you have set your teams and yourself up for success. No matter what you are trying to achieve, understanding the factors that lead to project victories will help get your startup off to the right start.Here are 3 simple steps that you can do to ensure that your projects contribute to, rather than hinder, your startup's success. 1. Start with a clear vision of what you're trying to accomplish. Ask yourself: What problem am I trying to solve? How am I planning to solve this problem? And, what does success look like? Once you've answered these questions- share this vision with your team. If possible, keep this vision in a shared space and reference it often.2. Identify your projects. What projects will you need to complete to get your startup to where you want it to be? Breaking your desired goal into a series of mini-projects can make the road to success much more palatable than viewing it as one giant project. 3. Establish milestones. Milestones are smaller goals, in sequential order, that can provide leading indicators and help you monitor your project's health. If you or your team are on the path towards failure- you want to know it as soon as possible- milestones will help you achieve this. Through a shared vision, project identification, and milestones, your startup, and your team will be on a better path towards turning your dream into a reality. For more tips, questions, or to meet with other project managers, join https://elpha.com/c/women-in-project-management.

Iynna·Apr 11, 2021

Thanks Naomi! Great insights, curious on #2 when you are a small team (e.g 2 to 3 people) when you break out the projects how do assign who will do what? I think it is also important for early stage small team members to not all work on the same things (as we all know when there's too many cooks in the kitchen, not a lot gets done)

ProjectWhisperer·Apr 15, 2021

@iynna The optimal team size is between 3-9 people- so this is a great situation to be in. With limited context into your situation here’s what I’d recommend: -You want to avoid only having one person project so as to avoid having a single source of failure. -Have a project board where you and the team break out the project(s) work into bite-sized chunks and everyone is able to pull in the work based on their capacity. To many cooks in the kitchen is okay when it comes to projects so long as the work is sized/broken down collaboratively. Hope this helps!