A 2022 Guide to the Importance of Project Design in Project Management
The project management paradigm is a complex paradox. Every project that graduates from the project development process is unique with many different qualities and problems attached to it, but one thing that all of them have is a Project Design.
Project Design is such an important element of a project that without it there is no structure for the project development process to stand on and make the project a success in the future.
Most of the project managers in the industry rush the design process and little they know that by neglecting the proper execution of a project design phase, their project is going to be an absolute disaster without any hope of recovery.
Harsh words? Let’s see how that is true.
What is Project Design?
Project design is basically an outline of the different factors related to the project, that are going to be discussed and tracked by the manager and the development team.
A general project design consists of the following entities:
One thing you have to make sure as a manager is that you have to include your key stakeholders, upper-management, and the team members involved with the project, in the project design creation.
This will help you avoid any obstacles in the project development process in the future and also reduces any confusion in understanding the project vision for everyone involved in the project.
How a Project Design is Structured?
If the whole development process and the ultimate success of the project are dependent on the project design then you can imagine how tough and important is the structure of the project design itself.
Here are the contents of the project design structure that you need to familiarize yourself with.
The vision statement or the entire vision document is probably the most important text, related to the whole project, as it defines the different entities that have to be worked on in the future.
Naturally, when the document or the text is so important, the information in it must be immaculate and captivating enough for the stakeholders to understand the severity of the shindig.
Generally, this vision document consists of the problem that you are going to solve using the project or the product under production, and it also provides important information about the project’s potential to do so.
One other important thing about the document is that it can be presented to the stakeholders that are connected to the project , to make them understand the need of developing the project in the first place.
The document itself is not that comprehensive but its importance is amplified when the project goes under development and the team is not following the designated path, they can always revert to the true path by following this vision document.
A general rule to write a captivating vision statement is to envision a world where your project is a success , where it’s helping a lot of people, and transcribe that thought into words.
To support the vision statement or the document that you created, you first need to identify and understand the problem that is present in your project domain.
When you see pinpoint the problem, you will get a broader perspective of the obstacle that is forming in the way of your business growth via this problem.
What this investigation will do is that it will align the stakeholders, team members, and the manager on one simple task and that is the eradication of those obstacles. And what better way to do that?
Developing the project.
When you study the problem and understand it completely, you are better able to gather the relevant information you need to find a permanent solution for those problems.
When you start to gather this information for the solution, the first thing that you need to make sure is to confirm the type of information that you are gathering.
Next is to confirm that the sources that you are gathering the information from, are reliable and trustworthy.
You need to collect this information and document it.
The next step is to identify and gather the relevant resources that you might need to get the whole project development process up and running, and then finally completing it all the way.
Resources are not just tools and people; they can be any number of things relevant to the project development process.
For example, the mechanical equipment, working facilities, the personnel, and the tools both software and hardware can all be relevant resources for your project development process.
If you are unsure about what the relevant resources for your project development process are going to be, then you should follow the process that journalists use to approach a new news story.
This technique is called the Five W’s.
What this technique is that you need to ask the “ who, what, where, when, and why ” related to your project.
For example,
