Starting New Projects

Wrap up

There may be other information you'll need to gather, but that will depend on the project, your company, and your personal working style. After you have defined the deliverables, have defined your contacts, and have defined the schedule, you should send a follow-up email to everyone who was present at the meeting. The email should present a summary of the project as you understand it. You should include a sentence explaining that if your understanding is incorrect, you need to be told. A line like "If this is incorrect, please let me know. If I do not hear back from you, I will go ahead with the project as explained above," or something similar should do. You want to send the follow-up not only to make sure you understand what's going on, but also to cover yourself if someone later on says they didn't understand what you were going to do or says that what you have given them is not what they wanted.

After you've gathered these details and have received the okay to proceed, it's time to start work. Just keep in mind that just because you've taken the time to record all of this information, it doesn't mean that your clients won't change their minds. That's why you need to be flexible in how you work. If you find the direction of the project is changing, you should contact the appropriate people and get approval for the changes. Again, this is meant to provide you with some protection later on if someone says that you did not write what they wanted.

Good luck on your new project!