You’re a Product Innovation professional. How can you develop your project management skills?

1 Understand the scope

Before you start working on your product innovation project, you need to define the scope clearly. This means identifying the goals, objectives, deliverables, requirements, constraints, and assumptions of your project. You also need to communicate the scope to your stakeholders, team members, and sponsors, and get their agreement and feedback. Having a clear scope will help you avoid scope creep, manage expectations, and measure progress.

2 Plan your resources

Once you have the scope, you need to plan how you will use your resources to achieve your project goals. This includes estimating the time, cost, quality, and risk of your project, and allocating the human, material, and financial resources accordingly. You also need to create a work breakdown structure, a schedule, a budget, and a risk management plan. Planning your resources will help you optimize your efficiency, control your costs, and mitigate your risks.

3 Implement agile methods

As a product innovation professional, you need to be flexible and responsive to changing customer needs, market trends, and feedback. That's why agile methods are ideal for your project management approach. Agile methods are based on iterative and incremental development, where you deliver your product in small and frequent increments, and test and improve it continuously. You also need to collaborate closely with your customers, stakeholders, and team members, and use tools like Scrum, Kanban, or Lean to manage your workflow.

4 Monitor and control your progress

Throughout your project, you need to monitor and control your progress and performance. This means tracking and measuring your key performance indicators, such as scope, time, cost, quality, and risk, and comparing them with your baseline plans. You also need to report your status, issues, and achievements to your stakeholders, team members, and sponsors, and use tools like dashboards, charts, or graphs to visualize your data. Monitoring and controlling your progress will help you identify and resolve problems, make adjustments, and ensure quality.

5 Evaluate and close your project

At the end of your project, you need to evaluate and close your project. This means verifying that you have met the project objectives and delivered the expected outcomes, and obtaining the acceptance and approval of your customers, stakeholders, and sponsors. You also need to document and archive your project records, lessons learned, and best practices, and celebrate and acknowledge your team's efforts and contributions. Evaluating and closing your project will help you learn from your experience, improve your skills, and recognize your achievements.

6 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?