Project Management - Executing

It may sound obvious, but start the project on time. If you start off late, you may not be able to catch up. Start formally, with an initial meeting of everyone involved where you discuss the work plan. Plan your next meeting at the kickoff meeting. It is very important to establish a regular meeting plan. Meetings go a long way to foster commitment to the project and respect for deadlines.

During the execution phase, everyone on the team will probably be off buildingWeb pages, scanning photos, or writing code. As a project manager, you must stay in touch with your team members. This works both ways: others will need to stay in touch with you. You will also likely be the "content expert" for the project, so now is not the time for a research trip to Europe. Most people will expect you to check your e-mail at least daily, and to be available by phone.

If you are responsible for some of the tasks on the schedule, make sure you do them. Your contribution will be vital; if you don't provide your content (images, slides, or text) to the others on your team on time, they will not be able to complete (or perhaps even begin) their tasks. This will be especially important in the time between the project kickoff and the first meeting, for it sets the tone for the entire project..

You should require that everyone on the project send you regular status updates (and you should send updates to the team). Status updates will help you maintain and update the schedule, and coordinate interdependent tasks.