How to give a project a good start

Name: How to give a project a good start
Type: Process
Status: final
Version: 2007-12-06
Gist: describes what to do as a manager to make sure that the project after it's finished will be seen as a success AND something of real value has been produced.

S1: Meet with a few of your management colleagues and talk about the project's goals until you reach a consensus.
S2: Gather a kickoff meeting with these colleagues and make everybody bring one or more workers who are supposed to do the project work.
S3: Be as precise and specific as possible if some of the workers ask questions.
S4: Be specific about the project goals or concrete deliverables you might want to see. Let the project work out project organisation and courses of action.
S5: Ask the workers to explain their understanding of your vision.

Note: Surprisingly, you might have a hard time finding a project leader to happily go along with this behavior, for he can't sell almost anything as a success for you.