A concise playbook of proven project management frameworks and guiding questions, compiled from dozens of Google project managers. Covers initiation, planning, execution, and closing with practical tools like the 5 W's, project charter, and retrospectives.
This document is a project management playbook compiled from the practices of dozens of Google project managers. It is aimed at executives and project leads who need a concise reference for running projects from start to finish, structured around four delivery phases: initiation, planning, execution, and closing.
The initiation phase explains how to uncover project details using the 5 W's (what, why, who, when, where) by interviewing stakeholders from three different departments. It also covers defining scope boundaries, preventing scope creep, and drafting a project charter with summary, goals, exclusions, and cost-benefit analysis.
In the planning phase, the playbook advises building the team foundation through 1-on-1 coffee chats, assigning single task ownership, and sizing teams dynamically. It details estimating duration by breaking tasks down, challenging assumptions, and calibrating against past data, plus managing dependencies with a dependency alert rule.
The planning section also lists 12 pillars of a complete project plan, including project name, RACI ownership, tasks and milestones, financial budget, communication plan, and risk mitigation. The execution phase covers communication channels (asynchronous, synchronous, formal) and quality assurance loops like charter alignment and sponsor reviews.
Execution also introduces delivery frameworks such as Waterfall, Agile/Scrum, and Phased Launch, with guidance on when to use each. The closing phase focuses on blameless retrospectives (start, stop, continue), impact reports for sponsors, and closeout reports for PMs, ending with a summary of the 4 phases and 12 pillars.