Plan it, Janet

An early stage technology company usually consists of a small number of like-minded people who have probably known each other for a while, who share some common vision and who came together in order to accomplish a common goal. At this point in a company's evolution, there is often little thought put into long-term planning. The only goals are short term and everyone is focused on the same thing.

If a company is able to actually produce a product that resonates with their intended audience enough to make it past this early stage, things start to get more complicated.

These companies now find themselves challenged with serving multiple customers' needs, fixing issues from the first generation of the product, providing new enhancements, closing new deals, making partnerships and so on.

The original founders can no longer do all of the work themselves and they rush out and hire more people to help with the ever growing list of important tasks to keep the company running.

At this point, it is very easy for a company to devolve into a fire-fighting mode in which large numbers of resources are pulled from one really important project to another without really finishing any of them.

At some point, this leads to one of two things, inevitable collapse into chaos because none of the customers are happy. In some cases it can lead some of the smart people in the company figuring out how to organize themselves and pull the company up by its bootstraps through the chaos into a real business that provides real value to its customers.

At the core of this process is a dedication to some sort of project management. I'm not talking about some rigid whip cracking micro manager who seeks to control everything and runs around with a clipboard and checklists.

I am talking about a project manager who makes the effort to plan out projects and takes a realistic look at the time and resources that will be required to deliver a quality product.

It is important to have a single person in charge of the project management. This person needs to understand the entire list of tasks that need to be accomplished in order to reach a goal. They also have to have a way to monitor the status of each of these tasks so that everyone knows how far along a project is and whether it is ahead of schedule or behind schedule.

The information that having a real plan provides is invaluable. It helps you understand whether you need to hire additional people or if you already have enough people to take on the next big project.

It allows you to tell your customers when you will be able to deliver your next set of new features.

It can also tell you if the project you are working on it too ambitious and should be scaled back.

One important thing to remember is that project plans can change. If you find yourself running behind schedule, you have a choice. You can reduce the scope of the project or you can add resources. Don't be afraid to change your plan. Just be sure that the changes are given as much thought as the original plan.

Plans are worthless. Planning is essential.

- Dwight D. Eisenhower

You may also find that a project is much more complex that you originally thought once you get into the details of it. At this point, you can go back, amend the task list and reset the schedule and resources.

Everyone has a plan -- until they get punched in the face.

- Mike Tyson

I've said it before and I'll say it again, a good project manager is worth her weight in gold. The information they provide helps you understand your ability to execute, allows you to provide more accurate information to your customers, and gives everyone in the company an understanding of their common priorities and goals.

There are a lot of great project management resources out there. In future posts, I'll be taking a closer look at some of them.

I'd love to hear your experiences with project management and what works and what doesn't.