Blog Discussion: Re-post: Key Practices for Successful Project Management

[detail your answer]

Like this post, as a PM's perspective on these kinds of projects are scarse.

Great read! Marcin Sadowski’s guide is packed with practical advice for project managers and anyone involved in delivery teams or stakeholder leadership. I particularly appreciated his focus on the project charter as a foundational document—it’s a simple yet powerful tool that helps eliminate assumptions and ensures alignment among team members right from the start. It’s a great reminder that having clarity upfront can prevent misalignment further down the line.

In addition to having these core questions outlined in a document, we also like to periodically "zoom out" as a team and revisit our client’s vision, purpose, and online goals. This allows us to continuously guide and advise them in the right direction, ensuring that we're always aligned with their evolving needs.

The section on planning tools and the idea of using dedicated, client-specific projects in JIRA really resonates with me. We’ve adopted a similar approach, using JIRA to facilitate collaboration throughout the entire project lifecycle—and even beyond. By involving our clients and stakeholders in the process, from agreeing on specifications to providing input on design, estimations, and release planning, we ensure everyone is aligned and actively contributing to the success of the project.

As an addition, I’d like to share that, as a company committed to building long-term partnerships even after projects are “finished,” we’ve started moving away from using JIRA for storing stories and specifications. Instead, we're increasingly using Confluence for this purpose. While JIRA remains our tool of choice for managing workflows, we’ve found that after a project concludes, functionality often evolves over time, and specifications can change. It can be challenging to track what the initial specifications were and how they’ve shifted. By using Confluence, we can maintain a single, up-to-date overview that combines both the latest specifications and the original project requirements. This ensures that everyone involved has easy access to the most current information, along with the historical context.

Michael,

we also like to periodically "zoom out" as a team and revisit our client’s vision, purpose, and online goals. This allows us to continuously guide and advise them in the right direction, ensuring that we're always aligned with their evolving needs.

Oh, this is a great point! I've seen those client priorities and goals pivot halfway through a project 😲. That's ok, especially if it is beneficial to the stakeholder to change focus, but the implementation team needs to discuss and document the change and evaluate what impact it will have on the project.

Being too flexible (just doing what the client requests) without communicating the impact of decisions leads to projects that at best miss expectations and at worst completely fail.

we’ve started moving away from using JIRA for storing stories and specifications. Instead, we're increasingly using Confluence for this purpose.

It's great you mention this - adjusting your use of tools as you learn how to use them to produce the best outcomes for clients.

Should all teams make the same choice as your team? No... but, they should spend some time to identify opportunities to improve.