Extra Effort At the Start Of A Project Pays Off

The most important piece of advice I could give any Project Manager is that time spent at the beginning of a project on the discovery and planning tasks will pay off later in the project's execution tasks of specification, design, programming, testing, documentation, user acceptance testing, training and implementation. Even if you are provided with a project (Charter, Scope and Work Breakdown Structure) it pays to review and verify all information. Surprises (incomplete goals, incorrect or incomplete definitions or desired functionality) will result in the project taking longer and costing more than estimated. Following this bit of advice is key to minimizing risk.