Foundations of Project Management

A project, is a unique endeavor, and usually includes a set of unique deliverables. It's also a
temporary pursuit. It has a defined beginning and an end.
A project is a series of tasks that need to be completed to reach a desired outcome. Reaching that
desired outcome takes collaboration and careful planning that keeps the project on track and on
budget.
Project management is valuable to businesses because it helps ensure that a project delivers the
expected outcomes, both on time and within budget.
Project managers usually follow a process that involves planning and organizing, managing
tasks, budgeting, controlling costs and other factors. Everything they do helps make sure the
project can be completed on time and on budget. In broad terms, a project manager also needs to
make sure that the project outcome is bringing value to the company.
A project manager's daily responsibilities always include some version of the following, planning
and organizing.
Skills : By now, you might have noticed that you already have some of those skills, like
organizing or planning an event, problem-solving, or even managing a budget, and you use them
effectively in your everyday life.
The more job listings you find, the more buzzwords you'll likely notice, too— words like "data-
driven," "team player," "self-starter."
EXEMPLE : So in my role I've had to practice skills such as: communicating to stakeholders,
managing a budget, managing a project timeline in many different projects within my role. An
example of this could be organizing events for university students that come to Google's campus.
Some common project management-related buzzwords and skills you could include on your
resume are:

Analytical
Assertive
Assessing outcomes
Assessing progress
Attention to detail
Conflict resolution
Collaborative
Coordination
Communication
Development
Evaluation
Executing plans
Financial analysis
Impact assessment
Leadership engagement
Managing meetings
Managing client expectations
Managing conflicts
Managing relationships with stakeholders
Managing vendors
Meeting deadlines
Monitoring
Multitasking
Planning
Prioritizing
Problem-solving
Process development
Process improvement
Project coordination
Project implementation
Project initialization
Project planning
Project reporting
Quality control
Risk assessment
Risk management
Solution development
Strategic planning
Strong interpersonal skills
Strong verbal communication
Strong written communication
Project managers shepherd projects from start to finish and serve as guides for their team, using
their impeccable organizational and interpersonal skills every step of the way. As you learned
earlier, project managers usually follow a process that involves planning and organizing,
managing tasks, budgeting, and controlling costs so that the project can be completed within the
approved timeframe.

Project managers add value to their teams and organizations in key ways that include
prioritization, delegation, and effective communication. So let's break these down. First, we'll
discuss prioritization. Project managers add value to their teams and organizations through
effective prioritization of tasks required to complete a project. They're experts at helping team
members identify and break down large tasks into smaller steps. There'll be times when a project
manager may not know which task to prioritize. To determine which ones are the most critical to
the success of the project, they'll connect with their teams and with stakeholders to gather
information and make a plan. Stakeholders are people who are interested in and affected by the
project's completion and success, like the leader of an organization. You've probably used
prioritization to complete work in the past.

Project managers usually follow a process that involves planning and organizing, managing
tasks, budgeting, and controlling costs, and other factors, so that the project can be completed
within the approved budget and timeframe

Phases of risk management

In a previous video, you learned that risk management is the process of identifying and
evaluating potential risks and issues that could impact your project. Risk management is an
ongoing practice throughout the life cycle of your project. It typically involves some variation of
these five steps:

1. Identify the risk.

2. Analyze the risk.
3. Evaluate the risk.
4. Treat the risk.
5. Monitor and control the risk.

Let’s break these down:

1. Identify the risk. The first phase of the risk management process is to identify and define
potential project risks with your team. After all, you can only manage risks if you know what
they are.

2. Analyze the risk. After identifying the risks, determine their likelihood and potential impact
to your project. Serious risks with a high probability of occurring pose the greatest threat.
3. Evaluate the risk. Next, use the results of your risk analysis to determine which risks to
prioritize.

4. Treat the risk. During this phase, make a plan for how to treat and manage each risk. You
might choose to ignore minor risks, but serious risks need detailed mitigation plans.

5. Monitor and control the risk. Finally, assign team members to monitor, track, and mitigate
risks if the need arises.

In the upcoming videos and activities, you will learn about each of these phases in more detail
and use tools and templates to navigate the risk management process.

Tips for effective communication

In the previous videos, you learned that communication is key to any successful project. As a
project manager, you are central to that communication, which is an ongoing process throughout
the life cycle of a project. A good project manager must be effective in communicating with all
stakeholders and team members through various mediums.

As the project manager, it is important to develop a communication plan for the duration of your
project. Good communication helps your project run smoothly, leads to better outcomes, and
supports a healthy team culture. You can use these four tips to foster effective communication
within your team:

Graphic of four
tips for effective communication that are listed in reading: 1. Recognize and understand individual
differences 2. Brainstorm and craft the appropriate message 3. Deliver your message 4. Obtain
feedback and incorporate that feedback going forward
Recognize and understand individual differences
You can encourage open, inclusive communication by:

 Not making assumptions about your audience’s backgrounds, identities, or experiences.

 Being mindful of your own biases.
 Using appropriate, professional, and neutral language.
 Including, respecting, and being curious about diverse points of view.
As the project manager, you will undoubtedly work with a diverse group of team members and
stakeholders on each project. You will need to understand each team member’s background,
experiences, perspectives, and biases—as well as your own—to communicate effectively.

Brainstorm and craft the appropriate message

Communicate the right message by thinking about your intended audience. With whom are you
communicating? In your communications, always be clear about your reasons for reaching out:

 What channels can your audience use to contact you or the team?
 Are you conveying information?
 Are you asking for input?
 Are you clarifying an issue?
 Are you resolving a problem?
Some team members may require detailed information, while others may only need an overview
of the situation. No matter your audience, you should be sure to identify the purpose of the
message, state the information or request clearly and concisely, and stay on topic.

Deliver your message

As you craft your message, think about which methods are available and appropriate for
communicating with various members of your team, whether that is in person, in a video
conference, over the phone, via email, or in a meeting. Choosing the right method is especially
important if you have team members or stakeholders in different regions and time zones. Also,
be sure to:

 Avoid including any sensitive or potentially private information.

 Assume everyone at the company will receive the communication.

Obtain feedback and incorporate that feedback going

forward
Communication doesn’t end when you deliver your message, so be sure to follow up with your
audience by:

 Checking to make sure your message was clear.

 Asking them for feedback.
 Encouraging open communication.
  Responding to questions quickly.
In this final step, you will obtain feedback from your audience to ensure that your message was
received as you intended.

Key takeaways
You now have the steps to communicate effectively as a project manager! You have learned how
to foster open, inclusive communication by recognizing and understanding individual differences
among your team members. You know how to craft and deliver an appropriate message and the
importance of obtaining and addressing feedback. Most importantly, make sure your
communications are clear, honest, relevant, and frequent. Following these guidelines will set you

up for successful communication throughout your projects. Project status

reports
In this lesson, you are learning to identify and compare various types of tracking methods. This
reading will cover project status reports and how you can use them to track and communicate
common project elements in a snapshot.

Key components of a project status report

A project status report gives an overview of all of the project’s common elements and summarizes
them in a snapshot. It is an efficient communication tool to convey the latest status in one place for
the team and stakeholders.

Most status reports contain the following components:

 Project name: The project name should be specific to the purpose of the project so that the
overall goal of the project can be understood at-a-glance.
 Date: You will create project status reports many times during the course of a project’s
implementation phase. Reports can be created weekly or monthly—it all depends on the
stakeholders’ needs and pace of the project. Adding the date to each status report acts as a
reference point for your audience and also creates a history log of the project’s status over
time.
 Summary: The summary condenses the project’s goals, schedule, highlights, and lowlights in
one central place for easy stakeholder visibility. Usually, the summary section will be
followed by, or grouped with, the timeline summary and the overall project status.
 Status: As you can imagine, status is a crucial piece. The status of the project illustrates your
actual progress versus your planned progress. In project management, a common way to
depict this is through RAG (red, amber, green), or Red-Yellow-Green, status reporting. RAG
follows a traffic light pattern to indicate progress and status. Red indicates that there are
issues that need resolution and that the project may be delayed or go significantly over
budget. Amber/Yellow means that there are potential issues with schedule or budget, but
that the issues can likely be resolved with corrective actions. And green means the schedule
and budget are doing fine and that the project is on track. You can use RAG to indicate the
overall project status, as well as milestone status. Every project team and stakeholder may
have a slightly different perspective on what the colors mean and how urgent it is to escalate
 issues when they see an amber/yellow or red status, so it’s important to make sure everyone
understands what the different color statuses mean for your project.
 Milestones and tasks: A summary of the project’s major milestones thus far and current tasks
helps the team and stakeholders easily visualize the progress of those elements. In a project
plan, you will typically depict the tasks and milestones as ‘not started,’ ‘in progress’ or
‘completed’ at an item-by-item level. But, in the project status report, it is common to
summarize these items into two categories to better communicate the status. You’ll use key
accomplishments to detail what has happened, and upcoming to detail what big milestones
you will accomplish next.
 Issues: The issues include your project's current roadblocks and potential risks. Status
reports are an important opportunity to set expectations with your stakeholders. If your
project status is red or amber, you can flag what is preventing you from being where you
planned to be. You can also use this opportunity to state your plan to get the project back to
green, and ask for any resources or help you may need to do so. You will learn more about
communicating big risks and issues in the upcoming videos.

Project status report types

With those key elements in mind, you can format your report in a variety of ways depending on your
audience and what you need to communicate.

If you need to share a status report with your team for a project that contains multiple layers of
complexity, it may be best to format the report in a spreadsheet in order to keep track of all the
moving parts.

If you simply need to communicate updates to senior stakeholders, your status report may be best
formatted as a slideshow, like the one below, containing only an overview of the most key points.

Key takeaways
To recap, project status reports are a powerful tool to:

 Improve and simplify communication across the team.

 Keep everyone, including key stakeholders, informed.
 Request more resources and support (if needed).
 Create structure and transparency by recording the project status in a centralized place.
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While there are lots of different skills a project manager can bring to their role, there are four
specific skill sets that we think can help a project manager be successful. Those are enabling
decision-making, communicating and escalating, flexibility, and strong organizational skills.
Writing an effective escalation email
In this lesson, you are learning how to communicate risks and changes to your team and
stakeholders. In the previous video, you were introduced to escalation: the process of enlisting
the help of higher level project leadership or management to remove an obstacle, clarify or
reinforce priorities, and validate next steps.

There are many ways to escalate a risk, and it is important to set escalation standards with your
stakeholders before beginning work on a project. In this reading, we will focus on the escalation
email, and go over best practices for writing one.

Escalation email best practices

All projects—even those managed by experienced project managers—occasionally have
problems. Your role as the project manager is to help resolve problems and remove barriers that
prevent your team from making progress toward your goals. While many problems might be
small enough to resolve within your core team, other problems—like a major change in your
budget or timeline—may need to be brought to stakeholders for a final decision. Detailing these
problems, their potential impact, and the support you need in a clear and direct email to your
audience can be an effective communication tool.

Effective escalation emails:

 Maintain a friendly tone

 State your connection to the project
 Explain the problem
 Explain the consequences
 Make a request
Let’s discuss these five keys to writing a strong escalation email.

Maintain a friendly tone

When drafting an escalation email, you may feel tempted to get straight to the point, especially
when dealing with a stressful and time-sensitive problem. But keep in mind that it is important to
address issues with grace. Consider opening your email with a simple show of goodwill, such as
“I hope you’re doing well.” When describing the issue, aim for a blameless tone. Above all, keep
the email friendly and professional. After all, you are asking for the recipient’s help. Be sure to
close your email by thanking the recipient for their time.

State your connection to the project

Introduce yourself early in the email if you have less familiarity with the project stakeholders. Be
sure to clearly state your name, role, and relationship to the project. This helps the
reader understand why you are reaching out. Keep your introduction brief and to the point—a
single sentence should suffice. If you know the person on the receiving end of the escalation
email, you can simply reinforce your responsibility on the project before getting straight to the
problem.

Explain the problem

Once you greet your recipient and briefly introduce yourself, explain the issue at hand. Clearly
state the problem you need to solve. Provide enough context for the reader to understand the
issue, but aim to keep your message as concise as possible. Avoid long, dense paragraphs that
may obscure your message and tempt the reader to skim.

Explain the consequences

After explaining the problem, clearly outline the consequences. Describe specifically how this
issue is negatively impacting the project or how it has the potential to negatively impact the
project later in the project timeline. Again, keep your explanation concise and your tone friendly.

Propose a course of action and make a request

This is the central piece of a strong escalation email. In this section, you propose a solution (or
solutions) and state what you need from the recipient. A thoughtful solution accompanied by a
clear request lets the recipient know how they can help and moves you toward a resolution.

Putting it all together

Let’s see how these best practices come together to form a strong escalation email. In the
scenario that prompts the email, Sayid, a project manager from a company that sells gift baskets,
is having a quality control issue with one of the items in a line of holiday baskets. If the issue is
not rectified soon, the product launch will have to be delayed and the company will lose money.
In the annotated email example below, Sayid explains the issue to his internal stakeholders and
requests a meeting with them.
Key takeaway
In this example, Sayid maintains a friendly tone, clearly explains the problem and its potential
consequences, and makes a clear request of the recipients. The email is also brief and to the
point.

To recap, effective escalation emails apply these five best practices:

  Maintain a friendly tone
 State your connection to the project
 Explain the problem
 Explain the consequences
 Make a request
Escalation is a useful skill for solving problems quickly, and sending a strong escalation email
that applies these best practices can help get your team the help it needs.

User acceptance testing: Goals, best

practices, and management
In a previous video, you learned about different ways to measure customer satisfaction, including
feedback surveys and user acceptance testing (UAT). This reading will focus on why conducting UAT
is essential to the successful launch of any product, service, or software. We will also discuss some
best practices for effective UAT and how to manage the feedback you receive.

The goals of UAT

To recap, UAT is testing that helps a business make sure that a product, service, or process works
for its users. The main objectives of UAT are to:

 Demonstrate that the product, service, or process is behaving in expected ways in real-world
scenarios.
 Show that the product, service, or process is working as intended.
 Identify issues that need to be addressed before considering the project as done.
UAT simulates real-world conditions, so when the feature works as intended during the testing
process, you can be more confident that your product, service, or process will work properly once it
is launched. It allows a project team to gather detailed information about how users interact with a
product, service, or process. UAT helps the team answer such questions as: Do users recognize its
purpose and uses? How do they interact with it? How much time do users take to interact with it? Do
they notice all of its features? Is the product, service, or process accessible to everyone? UAT also
allows the project team to record information about how users feel about their experience with a
product, service, or process. Through testing, the team can learn about the emotions it evokes,
identities it conveys, appeal it holds, and so on.

Best practices for effective UAT

In order to achieve these goals, UAT needs to be conducted thoughtfully. These best practices can
help you administer effective UAT:

 Define and write down your acceptance criteria. Acceptance criteria are pre-established
standards or requirements that a product, service, or process must meet. Write down these
requirements for each item that you intend to test. For example, if your project is to create a
new employee handbook for your small business, you may set acceptance criteria that the
handbook must be a digital PDF that is accessible on mobile devices and desktop.
 Create the test cases for each item that you are testing. A test case is a sequence of steps and
its expected results. It usually consists of a series of actions that the user can perform to find
 out if the product, service, or process behaved the way it was supposed to. Continuing with
the employee handbook example, you could create a test case process in which the user
would click to download the PDF of the handbook on their mobile device or desktop to
ensure that they could access it without issues.
 Select your users carefully. It is important to choose users who will actually be the end users
of the product, service, or process.
 Write the UAT scripts based on user stories. These scripts will be delivered to the users during
the testing process. A user story is an informal, general explanation of a feature written from
the perspective of the end user. In our employee handbook example, a user story might be:
As a new employee, I want to be able to use the handbook to easily locate the vacation
policy and share it with my team via email.
 Communicate with users and let them know what to expect. If you can prepare users ahead of
time, there will be fewer questions, issues, or delays during the testing process.
 Prepare the testing environment for UAT. Ensure that the users have proper credentials and
access, and try out these credentials ahead of time to ensure they work.
 Provide a step-by-step plan to help guide users through the testing process. It will be helpful for
users to have some clear, easy-to-follow instructions that will help focus their attention on the
right places. You can create this plan in a digital document or spreadsheet and share with
them ahead of time.
 Compile notes in a single document and record any issues that are discovered. You can create a
digital spreadsheet or document that corresponds to your plan. It can have designated areas
to track issues for each item that is tested, including the users’ opinions on the severity of
each issue. This will help you prioritize fixes.

Managing UAT feedback

Users provide feedback after performing UAT. This feedback might include positive comments, bug
reports, and change requests. As the project manager, you can address the different types of
feedback as follows:

 Bugs or issues: Users might report technical issues, also known as bugs, or other types of
issues after performing UAT. You can track and monitor these issues in a spreadsheet or
equivalent system and prioritize which issues to fix. For instance, critical issues, such as not
being able to access, download, or search the employee handbook, need to be prioritized
over non-critical issues, such as feedback on the cover art of the handbook.
 Change requests: Sometimes the user might suggest minor changes to the product, service,
or process after UAT. These types of requests or changes should also be managed and
prioritized. Depending on the type and volume of the requests, you may want to share this
data with your primary stakeholders, and you may also need to adjust your project timeline to
implement these new requests.

Key takeaway
User acceptance testing is a powerful tool to ensure that your project outcome is desirable and
successful. Be sure to leave time in the schedule for proper testing and issue resolution.

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Common data metrics for project
management
There are many types of project data you can use to determine your team’s progress and efficiency,
evaluate the success of your project, and inform project decisions. While you don't need to be a data
expert, knowing how to measure, track, and evaluate the right kind of data will help you deliver the
most value and impact.

This reading will recap some of the common types of data from the previous video and introduce a
few more key data points that can help you manage projects and work with stakeholders. This
reading will also introduce a few ways to interpret the data so that you can reduce risks and make
the right decisions about your teams and projects.

The benefits of analyzing data in project

management
As a project manager, you can use data daily to make better decisions, solve problems, improve
performance and processes, and understand your users.

For example, if you have data on customer buying patterns, you can identify your best-selling
products, and you'll be able to make smarter decisions when placing new product orders with your
suppliers. This data will also help you better understand your users and their preferences so you can
improve your product offerings and performance.

You can also use project team data to help you refine your processes. For example, if your team is
experiencing an issue, analyzing data from your project tracker about the number of tasks
completed, escalations, or internal process problems can help you find the source. This will allow
you to make an informed decision about where to focus your efforts to improve processes.

Through critical analysis, application, and execution, data becomes a powerful tool to guide any
project in the right direction.

Data, metrics, and analytics

Three images: Numbers grouped in a circle to represent data; a graph with rulers lining the x and y
axis to represent metrics; two people working on a puzzle to represent analytics.
Data is information. It’s the numbers and feedback available to you about different aspects of your
project. Metrics are how you measure your data. They define the important or specific information
(data) you need to know about your project, such as productivity, quality, or engagement. Once you
determine your project's metrics, you analyze the data according to those metrics to find patterns
and answer questions about your project. This process is called analytics: using data to answer
questions, discover relationships, and predict unknown outcomes.
When analyzing data, ask: What do the metrics mean to you? How do you want to use the metrics
you've chosen? Can you find patterns to make predictions about your project? Can you find ways to
improve—or optimize—certain aspects of your project? What lessons can you draw from your
project's data?

What follows are some common categories of metrics used in project management and a brief
explanation of what they are and how they're useful to a project. Keep in mind that your use of
different metrics isn’t limited to these categories. All of your project data is interrelated. The same
metric can also provide different information when applied to different aspects of your project.

Productivity metrics

Productivity metrics typically measure progress and output over time. They allow you to track—or
predict—the effectiveness and efficiency of your project team.

To track your team's productivity over time, analyze the number of tasks or milestones completed in a
given time frame. Ask questions like, what percentage of tasks are completed on time, and how long
do they usually take? Or, if tasks were not completed on time, how much longer than anticipated did
it take to complete all the tasks?

On-time completion rates can help illustrate to clients and stakeholders how the project is
progressing and when they can expect certain deliverables to be ready. If your project's completion
rates are high, it means you're doing a good job of meeting your completion goals. If the rates are
low, it means you're missing deadlines. Analyzing data can help you make decisions about things
like improving or implementing new processes, or re-evaluating how you estimate project scope,
complexity, and timeline.

Calculating duration (how long something takes) can be useful for setting and evaluating tasks and
milestones and determining if you'll meet project deadlines. Tracking task duration can improve the
accuracy of estimating a project's timeline. This data is broken down into hours, days, weeks,
months, and sometimes years.

You can also analyze current information to predict future outcomes and make projections (or
forecasts) about productivity trends, project durations, costs, performance or quality. This kind of data
empowers you to proactively manage your project and its resources and measure the accuracy of
your projections over time. For example, analyzing your team's overall performance or velocity can
answer questions such as, is the team completing its tasks and milestones? What percentage of
tasks is the team finishing on time?

Predicting the future may be impossible, but building a better understanding of it and refining your
method for making projections is achievable and valuable.

Quality metrics

Quality metrics relate to achieving acceptable outcomes and can include metrics such as number of
changes, issues, and cost variance, all of which affect quality.

Changes refer to differences in any aspect of the project from what was originally planned or
required. Issues are problems that may affect task completion—and often result in a change. Track
the number of changes and issues to identify patterns, refine processes, and share information
about the project with stakeholders.

Cost or budget variance is the difference between the actual amount of money spent on a project and
the amount that was budgeted for the project. Over time, this data can help you understand how well
you're estimating budgets for your projects. A low variance means you've estimated your project
budget accurately. A high variance means you should reevaluate your estimation process. You could
be under- or over-estimating costs for your budget, or you may not be tracking expenses effectively.

Happiness and satisfaction

Project managers at Google use a sub-set of metrics called happiness metrics that also relate to
quality. These are metrics that relate to different aspects of the user's overall satisfaction with a
product or service, like visual appeal, how likely they are to recommend, and ease of use. Happiness
metrics can generally be captured with a well-designed survey or by tracking revenue generated,
customer retention, or product returns.

Customer satisfaction scores reflect user attitudes, satisfaction, or perceived ease of use. These scores
measure how well the project delivered what it set out to do and how well it satisfies customer and
stakeholder needs. Customer satisfaction scores generally represent a combined metric—the sum of
several different happiness metrics. For example, on a satisfaction survey, a customer might
separately rate a product's appearance as 6/10, ease of use as 7/10, and likeness to recommend or
use again as 8/10. The overall customer satisfaction score would then be 7/10.

You will need to determine what scores are acceptable for your project by discussing with
stakeholders what the most important aspects of the project are.

Adoption and engagement

Another set of metrics related to quality are adoption and engagement. Adoption refers to whether or
not a product, service or process is accepted and used. Engagement refers to the degree to which it
is used—the frequency of use, amount of time spent using it, and the range of use. It might help to
think of these in terms of throwing a party: your adoption metrics would reveal to you whether or not
people accepted the invitation and showed up. The engagement metrics would tell you how active
they were at the party—whether they participated in activities or interacted with other attendees, if
they invited their friends to come with them, and how long they stayed.

Adoption metrics for a product or service release, like an app, software program, delivery service, or
gym membership, would be similar to the party example. However, they can be a bit more complex if
you need to track metrics for more than one thing, like whether users make additional purchases or
sign up for premium features.

Each project will need to define its own set of successful adoption metrics, such as:

 Conversion rates
 Time to value (TTV)
 Onboarding completion rates
 Frequency of purchases
 Providing feedback (rating the product or service)
 Completing a profile
Engagement metrics tell you to what degree a product, service, or process is being used. They reveal
the frequency and type of customer interaction and participation over time. Engagement metrics
might include the daily usage rate of a design feature or tracking orders and customer interactions.

As a project manager, you're not only concerned with the end user's level of engagement. It's just as
important to monitor stakeholder and team member engagement as well. Measuring stakeholder
participation by tracking the frequency of communication, responses to emails or updates, attendance
at meetings, or level of input can give you a sense of whether or not stakeholders are finding value in
the project. A lack of meaningful engagement could put your project at risk. Stakeholders may not be
aware of changes or the overall progress of the project, and therefore the final outcome of the
project may not meet their expectations. Measuring team member engagement is vital to the
success of your project because the more engaged they are, the more productive they are, and the
more likely they are to produce high-quality results.
Ideally, you want your adoption and engagement metrics to increase or to at least meet the goal
metrics that were established with stakeholders earlier in the project. If there is no increase, or the
metrics drop, then your rates are low and therefore not as successful. Check out the resources
below for a more in-depth understanding of how and why to measure adoption and engagement.

Key takeaway
Data, metrics and analytics are all important to the success of your project. You'll need to have some
familiarity with how to collect and measure data, and how to use the data to tell you about different
aspects of your project. Depending on the project and its unique goals, some metrics will be more
important than others. It's your job to make sure you understand which metrics your stakeholders are
most interested in and what elements impact your team's ability to deliver quality results on time and
within budget.

Principles of effective email writing

Email has long been the primary method of communication for many people in business, yet
messages are easy to misunderstand or ignore. In this reading, we will discuss four principles of
effective email writing that will help your emails to stand out, be remembered, and elicit the response
you need. These principles are:

 State what you want clearly.

 Keep the content short and concise.
 Structure your writing.
 Check grammar, punctuation, and spelling.
Principles of effective email writing
State what you want clearly
When you set out to compose an email, it is because there is something that you want from your
reader. You might want to receive a simple answer, to persuade someone of something, or to
arrange a meeting. Before composing an email, think about what you want, when you need what you
want, and the best way to get what you want when you want it.

Here are some tips on how to clearly state what you want in your email:

 Include your request in the subject line of your email.

 State your request within the first two paragraphs of your email message.
 Indicate the specific call-to-action associated with your request (for example, reply, review,
RSVP).
 Write clear, concise sentences when providing details.
 Define terms. Avoid using acronyms and terminology that users may not know. Provide
additional information as necessary to avoid misunderstanding.

Keep the content concise

Make your words work for you. Remove any writing that doesn’t help to define what you want or
contribute to your reader's needs.
  Summarize the content you want to convey, and remove anything in your email that doesn’t
contribute to your goal.
 Aim to write “question-less” and “self-standing” emails. This means that the message
contains enough information to stand on its own. The reader shouldn’t have any questions
about what you want and when you want it.
 Know your audience. Some people—such as executives and other busy leadership—may
not want to read emails of more than a few sentences or click on external links for further
information. Try to tailor your emails accordingly.

Structure your writing

Structure has to do with the visual flow, or aesthetics, of your email. A well-structured email conveys
critical information to the reader quickly and allows them to scan the explanatory text—or ignore it
altogether. Here are some tips for effectively structuring your email:

 Use bullets. Bullets break up the visual flow. If you have more than one of something,
consider using bullets. Write strong action verbs at the start of each bullet.
 Use labels. Labels help guide the reader to what information is most important.
 Add hyperlinks. Hyperlinks allow readers to directly access additional information, rather
than adding lengthy details to your email.
 Write a strong topic sentence. Place the main idea of the paragraph in the topic sentence.

Check grammar, punctuation, and spelling

Grammar, punctuation, and spelling are critical. Turning grammar and spelling suggestions on in
your email application can help you quickly identify errors. Be sure to correct any errors before
sending off.

Applying effective email writing principles

In order to learn how to apply these principles, let’s check out the following example email:

Issac was given the task of sending an email about the company’s annual team building retreat.
Please note: Blue, underlined text indicates a hyperlink to an external site or document.
Subject : Annual Team Building Retreat - Register Now! Team, I am thrilled to invite you all officially
to the 2021 Annual Team Building Retret. As in previous years, we are taking time out to celebrate
and strengthen our team spirit—to learn from each other and to plan for the challenges ahead. Weve
got something special planned for this retreat! Beyond the staples of world-class training, fabulous
working sessions, and executive presentations, we've also arranged: An Annual Awards Dinner at
the Hotel San Francisco; pre-booked rooms for those who want to stay at the hotel after dinner; and
an afternoon at Shoreline Lake with sailing, rowing, and paddle boats available. We hope you can
join us for all three excursons. Don't forget to register and sign up per the instructions on the site.
Our theme this year is Transform. We look forward to sharing a transformational week with you all!
Best, Issac Soto
This email example is not as effective as it could be. The date and location of the event are not
included. The main link Issac wants the reader to click—to register for the event—is buried at the
bottom of the email. The other links in the message are also overwhelming because there are so
many. There are no bullets or labels to help organize the information. Additionally, there are a few
spelling and punctuation errors.

Let’s examine how Issac’s email could be revised to be more effective.

Subject: Annual Team Building Retreat - Register Now! Team, I am thrilled to invite you to the 2021
Annual Team Building Retreat, October 13–15 at the Hotel San Francisco. This is an opportunity to
celebrate and strengthen our team spirit and to learn from one another as we plan for the challenges
ahead. To end the event, we will hold our Annual Awards Dinner. Sign up now! For the retreat For
hotel rooms For lakeside activities Best, Issac Soto
In this example, there is a clear, concise description of what the email is about at the very beginning
of the email. The dates and location of the event are clearly stated at the beginning of the email. The
opening paragraph is directly followed by a label in bold: Sign up now! Then, bullet points help set
apart the hyperlinks for better visibility, and the hyperlinks clearly state what the reader will access
when they click. Lastly, the grammar, spelling, and punctuation are all accurate.

Key takeaway
When you write an email, think about the people you are sending it to and what they need in order to
quickly read and correctly understand it. Remember to:

1. State what you want clearly.

2. Keep the content concise.
3. Structure your writing.
4. Check grammar, punctuation, and spelling.
Keeping these principles in mind when you draft emails will help you communicate more effectively
with your team members, stakeholders, customers, and others. It can also demonstrate your level of
professionalism and competence and inspire others’ confidence in your abilities.

Project Management
Un proiect este un efort unic și, de obicei, include un set de rezultate unice. Este, de asemenea, o
activitate temporară. Are un început și un sfârșit, deci un proiect este o serie de sarcini care
trebuie îndeplinite pentru a obține un rezultat dorit. Pentru a ajunge la rezultatul dorit
este nevoie de colaborare și de o planificare atentă care să mențină proiectul pe drumul cel bun
și în limitele bugetului. Aici intervine managementul de proiect. Managementul proiectelor este
esențial pentru succesul proiectelor mari și mici.
Managerii de proiect urmează, de obicei,un proces care implică planificarea și organizarea,
gestionarea sarcinilor, bugetarea, controlul costurilor și alți factori. Tot ceea ce fac aceștia
contribuie la asigurarea faptului că proiectul poate fi finalizat la timp și în limitele bugetului. În
linii mari, un manager de proiect trebuie, de asemenea, să se asigure că rezultatul proiectului
aduce valoare pentru companie.
Skills : organizare, planificare, rezolvarea de probleme,luarea decizilor, flexibilitate
Manageri de proiect adauga valuare echipei prin prioritizare, delegare, si comunicare efectiva.

Procesul este: planificare si organizare, rezolvarea taskurilor, a bugetului, controlul costurilor

pentru ca proiectul sa fie complet in timpul alocat.