Everyone managing a project becomes intimately familiar with Finagle’s Law of Dynamic Negatives: “Anything that can go wrong, will – at the worst possible moment.” The project doesn’t start on time; crucial milestones are missed; team members don’t communicate; you’re going over-budget; there are too many status meetings and not enough action. While you do not know which specific challenges you will face for a particular project, you can take steps to ensure that they do not turn into crises.

Understand objectives. The key to making any project work, or making any goal attainable, is understanding the objectives. What are you trying to accomplish? What are the business requirements you are trying to implement? You need to know these as clearly, concisely, and articulately as possible. What does success look like? What is your end-game?

Projects can run amok when communication among key members, or between management and employees, is not fluid, timely, or effective. Everyone involved needs to understand the objectives and what they must do to accomplish them.

Manage Expectations. We need big ideas; they are what drive growth, change, and innovation. They can also drive a project right into a brick wall. How can you break it into manageable pieces so you can continue to deliver over an extended period of time to get to the end-state? You can’t do the project in one big leap, so what steps do you need to take? How are you going to get there? How much is it going to cost in terms of money, time, and resources?

Fill in the gaps. Another challenge that small businesses run into is that they do not have the people they need to complete projects totally in-house. If this is the case, find them; speak with contractors, consultants, and others who can help fill those gaps on a shorter-term basis.

Anything that can go wrong, will – but you can reduce the amount of things that can go wrong with clear objectives and a comprehensive plan for achieving them.