Below are the highlights of my project management principles. The left-hand Current section's content column's links lead to this section's articles that address project planning, development and management-related topics.

The more goal-oriented is the project's nature, the more uncertainty or disagreements there are about what the project needs to achieve and how it will achieve what it needs to achieve, and the less experienced are the participants regarding the project-related subject matters, the less knowledgeable they are about the possibly applicable project-specific rules, restrictions and regulations, the more thorough should be the project planning process and the more predictive should be the overall project management approach.

If the project is not very complex, the project has an overall description but the primary objectives are not related to specific goals that need to be achieved, all the needed resources are readily available and the project has a flexible budget and deadlines, the planning process can be less than comprehensive and the overall project management approach can be much more agile. The resulting project development process will contain more uncertainties and the quality of the end result will be less predictable. However, the more agile approach can produce initial sets of results much faster. The overall project development time may, or may not be shorter.

The more creativity and artistic input does the project require, the more applicable is such flexible project development process.

Even comprehensive project development plans should be implemented in a mixed mode. This means that after a thorough end user needs and wants analysis we define all the steps, tasks and resources (including time) that are needed for the project's development. However, during the project planning stage we always leave extra time for completion of the tasks, and for exploring different options and alternatives during the development stage as well. This extra time is allocated and used up flexibly, so that project development related efficiency is mixed with creativity when and where needed.

This company's preferred project planning and development methods increase substantially the probability that good quality end results are delivered on time and within the budged. This is the biggest plus of this approach.

The biggest minus of this approach is, that the planning process itself requires considerable amount of work. Further, overall project development process requires from different type of participants considerable amounts of high quality input and dedication. As part of this approach, sufficiently thorough understanding of the users needs and wants and project's other requirements and constraints is important. Similarly, matching project task requirements with the participants qualifications is important. Further, high quality input and dedication are required from the customer's representatives as well. Only through combined efforts can we ensure the project's success.

After dividing the project into small steps and estimating the relevant input needs, every step is treated as a critical one, that should be handled to the best of the participants abilities on time and within the budget. No matter how well the resource needs estimation was done, unexpected problems will surface. The more unknown territory has to be covered and the more creative input the project requires, the more likely it is that some of the estimations will not hold.

However, if the project development process has been divided into sufficiently small steps and the necessary resource reserves are built into the project's plan, and every step is treated as critical, so that the resource reserves are used up only on high priority tasks when needed, project can be completed so, that the agreed on results are delivered on time and within the budget.