Do you have “that thing” that’s always hard to remember, but you know it’s important? Birthdays, chores, activities, something’s missing. The same thing tends to happen in projects.
Having a checklist that reminds you of those tasks is a useful yet straightforward aid to fulfill requirements. We think that complicated issues don’t need to be answered by intricate solutions.
It’s flexible, and you can adapt it to any project with a defined structure. We use it to keep those easy-to-forget tasks in check.
In this post, you’ll learn how to generate checklist items and how you can promote it in your company.
How to identify issues
Through your clients
What were the complaints your clients had in past projects? Having feedback in mind is one, if not the most, necessary fuel of this checklist.
Remember, how was your past project? Did you find an interaction with the client uncomfortable? Perhaps they didn’t feel satisfied with some things you said?
Listing these encounters, recognizing whether they are necessary to act upon are steps you can take here.
Through your team
Any insight you get from experienced members is valuable. Recognizing pain points in your process and (if they can) give solutions to them, it’s a priceless trait of successful teammates.
So, should I just list those items and call it a day?
Short answer: no.
Listing items and expecting to have it solved by the next project will get you nowhere. We like to keep these items with someone in charge and a clear solution. Once we find an issue, we ask ourselves these questions:
- Can this problem be fixed? How? Go through a possible list of resolutions and drop one by one until you have the right answer.
- Who’s in charge of this fix? Once you’ve found how to address the issue, you need to assign someone capable of handling the solution. Take a look around. From your team, who can you trust to execute that checklist item?
- At what part of the project does this need to be made? Position your item on a specific point of the project to ensure your team executes it at the right time.
- Is this for one particular client or all of them? Finally, ask yourself whether another client would appreciate this solution, or instead, they would feel discouraged to work with you again (a bit radical, but it can happen)
How can I keep tabs on these items?
Losing track of this checklist is not unusual. You need the discipline to not only do it but also accompany your projects with it. We like to follow our checklist in the following way:
We use Notion for everything, and this is no different. We duplicate our checklist during every project and add it to our project folder to keep it visible. This helps the PM have all the documents in place and mark the items once your team does them. It’s that simple.
Bottom line
A project checklist is a useful tool to guide you and your team. You start filling the list by being thoughtful about past projects and knowing what went wrong or what you forgot. Also, you get new items just by talking to your team.
It’s an easy solution for your project woes. Give it a try and let us know how it went. If you run into any troubles, feel free to contact us via LinkedIn, and we’ll get back to you in a flash!
This article was written by Flavio Ruiz, Content Manager at Moka, the best company with this name. We recently moved out of our offices in Santa Fe to become a remote agency. We’re excited to see how having no office works with us!
