In practice, how do you start a new project? What are the steps involved?
In this chapter, I’ll explain how to get your project off to a good start and keep it on track.
Familiarize Yourself With Your Project Brief
For every project you work on, you’ll be given a fictional but realistic professional brief. The brief is explained in detail on your project page, under the tab labeled... Project brief!
The brief is the base of your project. It’s where you’ll find all the information you need about the project’s context, obstacles, goal, and constraints. At the bottom of the page, you’ll also find details about the skills you’ll be developing and the deliverables to complete.
When you start a new project, the most important thing is to understand exactly what the expectations are. It’s essential for getting started on the right foot. So before you begin, read your brief carefully and ask yourself the following questions:
Who will I be working with/for on this project?
What do they need me to do?
What do they expect me to achieve at the end of the project?
How much work is required for each deliverable?
Who will I be presenting my work to at the end?
Clearly identifying the expectations for each deliverable is essential because it allows you to focus on what’s required and not waste time on unnecessary work. As soon as you start, I recommend creating a rough draft of your deliverables. This could be a mostly blank document with some section headings or a code file that hasn’t been filled in yet. The goal here is to quickly establish a plan of how you’ll complete your deliverables.
Once you’ve analyzed your brief and deliverables, take some time to note down what you’ve understood, in your own words, for your mentor. Then they can confirm that you’ve understood the project or point out anything you might have missed. That way, you can be confident you’re heading in the right direction!
Break Down the Project Into Stages
Now that you know exactly what’s expected of you, let’s move on to planning the project. What steps will you need to take to complete your project, and in what order? That’s what we’ll be finding out below.
Identify Major Project Stages
As you complete your project, you’ll go through several stages:
The launching stage, which includes the tasks of analyzing and planning the project. This is the stage you’re in right now.
The project completion stages, with each stage broken down into deliverables to complete, resources to read, etc.
The stage to prepare for the project assessment.
The debriefing stage after your assessment.
For each of these stages, you will set some intermediate goals. Let’s look at an example: If you’re a student on the JavaScript React Developer path and one of the project skills is “Integrating content in a mockup,” you will probably start by taking the course Set Up Your Front-End Development Environment. As you can see, your intermediate goals are set on a case-by-case basis, to suit each project.
Set SMART Goals
To be as constructive as possible, each goal should follow the SMART rules:
Specific: It should relate to a specific step in the project (e.g., a deliverable, learning a new method, finishing a course, etc.).
Measurable: Choose a numeric indicator to determine whether a goal has been met (e.g., number of deliverables completed, number of courses finished, etc.).
Achievable: Don’t be too ambitious. You need to have the necessary skills and resources for it to be achievable.
Relevant: The goal should be relevant to the project’s scope.
Time-bound: The goal should have a start and end date.
For example: “I want to complete the majority of my deliverables for next week” isn’t specific enough to be a SMART goal because it’s unclear exactly what you want to achieve. Whereas if your goal is: “I want to finalize Deliverable 2 for Monday,” that’s much clearer and more achievable!
Use a Project Management Tool
Feel free to use this Notion board based on the agile planning method. In this sample board, we’ve broken the project down into chronological stages, week by week.
Each week, you can customize and adapt the tasks on the board with your mentor. This will make it easier to keep track of the project!
There are other ways to approach organizing a project—using a theoretical model or one based on project stages for example. The method you use will depend on the project you’re working on. Talk it over with your mentor.
In this video, Alexandra and Virginia share their experiences as students starting a new project. They’ve been in your position before, so you may find their advice very useful!
Let’s Recap!
To launch a new project in the best possible conditions, follow these steps:
Analyze the project brief and expectations carefully.
Write down what you understand in your own words.
Make a rough draft for each deliverable, according to its requirements.
Identify the steps you’ll go through to complete the project, making sure to set some SMART goals (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Time-Bound). List them in a project management tool, such as Trello.
Once you’ve completed these steps, it’s time to dive into some courses! They’ll help you learn to apply the methods and approaches needed to complete the project. We’ll discuss this more in the next chapter!
