Larger IT projects require commitment and enormous efforts to accomplish. Sometimes, they can be quite challenging even to start. So let’s take a quick look at understanding what needs to get done without raising your stress levels.
Where To Start
The first obstacle you might encounter is deciding the size of the project itself. When you understand where you need to start, what actions you can perform, and what steps you need to take, you may feel somewhat intimidated. And that is when we might begin to procrastinate.
Some of the most significant reasons for delaying a project could include:
- No Clear Deadline – Without knowing the timeline or setting benchmarks for the project, it’s far easier to postpone the work to an unspecified time in the future.
- Project Seems Too Complicated – Much like Rome, great things don’t get built in a day. Whether you’re afraid to fail, or you’re having trouble with the blueprint from start to finish, it can dull your enthusiasm.
Among the biggest missteps you can make is putting off the perfect moment to begin. When you have a clear understanding of what you need to do, there’s little reason to put the project off, especially if the project is straightforward. A more significant project with a faraway deadline can get divided into milestones that all have clearly defined deadlines.
Setting milestones provides clarity in accomplishing smaller tasks based on a schedule, giving clarity and focus on the task at hand. Milestones generally account for the time required to complete the job and include an outline.
Example Of Starting A New Project
For example, let’s say a healthcare organization wants to build and deploy a healthcare application that helps doctors fight global diseases. In the initial modeling, the scope isn’t well defined, and there are many unknown factors, making it more challenging. However, by narrowing it into four phases, the project becomes more transparent.
These phases include initial research, design, development, and testing. While it’s difficult to predict the exact time required for design, development, and testing, the initial research should be easier to work through. Two to three weeks should provide enough time to assemble the list of required items, which should include:
- Research the market for similar solutions
- Internal reviews and brainstorming
- Interview business rep from your client
- Contact and interview external experts, if necessary
- Define the most challenging areas and spend extra time researching them
- Prepare detailed project plan for stages 2-4 (design/development/testing)
In the example of the healthcare application, this would be the time to identify functionality, usability, and security requirements.
Working with a project manager can provide a more abstract project description, narrowing down a precise and detailed list of items to complete within the weeks and months ahead if it is a significant project.
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