Project Management

People seem to forget what has been decided even a few weeks or days ago. So I decided to start capturing every decision.

After reading http://pm.stackexchange.com/questions/1430/how-should-a-project-manager-capture-decisions I came up with the following plan:

• Create a project log (I use Zim for note taking) for every project
• Capture every meeting, important mails or other events in the project log
• Put the date and the participants in the title
• Using bullet points and indentation (outliner style) to organize the content seems to work fine
• Mark every actions with [Action: Name] and every decision with [Decision]
• Below [Decision] note rationale and alternative solutions
• Some decisions are based on assumptions. If that's the case it must be stated below [Decision]

Important documents I need to keep for every project:

• Project log to track actions/decisions and general information
• Current and historic KPIs for the project (more on this later)
• List of problems and external factors that impact the project
• List of stakeholders with email addresses and role

I use the term projects for everything from adding a feature to an existing project as a single developer to big greenfield projects.

Reminder to myself:

• Have written task descriptions - People seem to forget a lot of things
• If you want to verify if something works/is done don't just ask verbally but test it yourself or get someone to demo it to you