Checking All the Boxes: How to Successfully Manage Projects from Start to Finish
April 17 , 2025 | By Herlinda Ibarra and Melody Moua
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Download Transform Health’s official project management checklist! See details below.
Take a moment to imagine that you have been tasked with managing the launch of a large-scale project in the next quarter. What do you do to set up your project for success in its first year?
Without proper preparation and a strong foundation, project management can feel daunting. Major projects require extensive planning in advance with a collaborative team, as well as ongoing project management to ensure the project continues to align with the organization’s vision and stakeholders’ expectations. Projects can grow and develop in ways that can force teams to adapt to changes from the original plan.
Now is the time for project managers to begin “spring cleaning” to get the team organized to tackle large-scale projects. Here are some tips and considerations our team at Transform Health have developed for project managers to successfully guide a project through its lifecycle.
Project Definition and Objectives
The first step for project managers as they start a new project or implement a change in scope is to consider the contract and existing documents that determine the scope of the work. What is the problem you are trying to solve? Sometimes this may not be clear from only contract documents and may require a meeting with the project director and other stakeholders. Helpful questions to ask include: What does success look like to you? What are the desired outcomes?
Once an overall project goal is set, it may be helpful to break this goal into smaller goals or milestones. Ask yourself what pieces are needed to accomplish this overall goal, as these could be your potential deliverables. Deliverables are tangible or nontangible items produced by the project team.
Project Planning
Now that you have an idea of what the scope of the project will entail, you can begin building a great team to support the project. With the project goals in mind, what skills and knowledge will your team need to achieve those goals? Will you need someone skilled in data analysis? Does the project entail frequent external communication that is best suited for a communications manager role? Consider if there are current staff for those roles or if there is a hiring need to fill any gaps. Examine all potential roles such as project supports, admin, operations, systems administrators, and subject-matter experts.
Next, think about what software and technological tools can be used to best support the project and staff needs. A cloud-based project management information system (PMIS), such as Teamwork or Asana, can be a helpful tool to track progress, assign tasks, and act as a central source of truth for the team to reference at any time. Consider the pricing, tool features, ease of creating reports, and a user-friendly interface when choosing a PMIS for your project and team.
A cloud-based content management, collaboration, and file storage system may also be helpful for the team to work on documents in a central location and collaborate concurrently. Some examples include Microsoft SharePoint and Google Drive.
Project Kickoff
Internal Project Team
As the project kicks off, a work plan will be an essential tool for the project team to reference as it allows ease of tracking progress, increased organization, and improved productivity. A work plan should break your project goals and deliverables into smaller, bite-sized steps so there is a clear path to accomplish these milestones.
After a work plan is developed, an internal project kickoff meeting will help align staff on the work plan and provide a space for the team to ask clarifying questions. Tools like RACI charts may be helpful for clarifying roles and responsibilities for each task and deliverable. Establish team norms for communication on task progress, meeting cadences, software use, and escalation paths when issues arise.
External Stakeholders and Project Execution
Once the team is ready, consider scheduling a separate project kickoff meeting with key external stakeholders not involved in day-to-day project activities. These may be department or company leaders who provide broad oversight, or outside partners or funders who need to be involved in major decisions. In this meeting, present the project work plan, provide space for questions, and establish a regular meeting schedule to continue sharing updates and receiving feedback. As the project begins, keep stakeholders informed of any changes in project scope, schedule, or budget.
Ongoing Project Management
An important duty of a project manager is to provide ongoing oversight of the project as it proceeds. Review the work plan at regular intervals (e.g., at the beginning and end of each week) to ensure it is reflective of the assigned tasks, deliverables, and timelines. While your work plan should lay out the steps to successful execution of your project, stay flexible to pivot if time, budget, staffing, or other constraints impact the work.
Another tip for ongoing project management is to ensure that documents and materials are organized and easily accessible for the team. Consider establishing naming conventions for documents and setting up a hierarchical folder structure with top-level folders and subfolders in your cloud-based file storage system. These small actions can save a lot of time in the long run.
Project Close-Out
As the project winds down, make sure to document any important lessons learned. You will want to gather your team and ask for their honest feedback: Did we achieve our goal? What factors contributed to this outcome? Did we have the right resources and support to complete the project? What challenges did we face and how could we better address them in the future? Schedule project debriefs with the internal team and external stakeholders, and take note of all the feedback for future projects
Driving a project to completion requires various steps. After reading our tips and considerations, we hope you are able to implement some in your processes. Our team at Transform Health is experienced and can support you to build your team’s project management capacity. For more information, please email Heather Bates, COO and Vice President, at heather@transformhc.com.
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As a bonus, we are sharing Transform Health’s official project management checklist that you can start using today.
Transform Health is an Inc. 5000-ranked national private health care consulting firm with a mission to drive systems change to build healthy communities. Reach out to us today if you would like to work together. Contact Heather Bates, COO and vice president, at heather@transformhc.com. We would love to hear from you!