In my quest for increased sanity and simplicity, I’m always thinking about how to be a better project manager. My latest innovation was inspired by Sione Aeschliman of Marylhurst University. Each week she sends email to the stakeholders of a project for which I am the developer. The email is a succinct summary of the status of the project. In includes a list of the open issues, what has been completed since the last email, and any related thoughts.

Inspired by the immediate value of having insight into these key issues I’ve been reorganizing my processes to be able to do that same thing for my projects. (As an aside, I have a hunch that success in business, and possibly happiness in life, is more a function of organizational effectiveness that of intellect. More on that another time.)

Over the years I’ve used a variety of software applications in order to meet this goal. Each seemed great at first, only to spiral down into a roiling sea of confusion and failed expectations. I now believe that project management has very little to do with the tools, and much more to do with paying attention to the right things. Right now, I understand those key factors to be the ability to answer the following questions:

• When is the project scheduled for completion (how this date was derived is a topic for another time)?
• What am I currently waiting for from the client?
• What is the client waiting for from me?
• What are the open issues? In other words, why is the project not down now? Open issues are all the issues that need to be addressed in order for the project to be considered “done.”
• What is the schedule for completing major milestones?
• What other notes are essential for keeping track of this project?

I’m sure that are other key factors to track, but this is what I’ve got so far.

To my mind, any tool that allows me to answer the above questions on a moments notice should work fine. Since I’m tired of paying for web-based systems that claim to manage this, I’ve decided to use a bare-bones document-based approach. Essentially, I have one google doc that lists all my open projects, with links to each project’s project plan. The project plan is a simple document with placeholders for the above information. If you are interested in seeing and even using my template, just follow the link below.

I’m really a frustrated project manager. None of this comes naturally to me, so if you see something I’m doing that’s inappropriate, or if I’m missing some essential steps, I would love to hear about it. But remember, right now I’m not trying to explain the full scope of my project management philosophy, rather just the steps required to provide meaningful status reports.

Project Plan Google Doc.