Project Initiation Weekly Initiation Daily Management Weekly Closure Project Closure Post-Project Management Identify the high-level decision maker(s) A1 Understand and distribute the hats A2 Select tools and create a project repository A3 Create a common understanding A4 Have Project Initiation peer-reviewed A5 Make a go/no-go decision A6 Conduct a focused communication A7 Revise and refine the common understanding C1 Have the Weekly Initiation peer-reviewed C2 Make a go/no-go decision C3 Conduct a focused communication C4 Manage follow-up items D1 Close completed deliverables D2 Measure and report performance E1 Evaluate stakeholder satisfaction E2 Capture lessons and plan for improvements E3 Consider swapping hats for the week E4 Double-check and hand over the final output F1 Evaluate stakeholder satisfaction F2 Have the Project Closure peer-reviewed F3 Consider swapping hats for Post-Project Management F4 Archive the project documents F5 Celebrate! F6 Conduct a focused communication F7 Evaluate the benefits G1 Generate new ideas G2 Conduct a focused communication G3

A2 - Understand and distribute the hats


You don’t want the project work to be done by sending each specialist task to a department and them assigning it to their experts on an ad hoc basis. Instead, the necessary experts must be officially appointed as project team members, preferably for the whole duration of the project.

There are four sets of concerns in any project. To make sure none of them is neglected, we consider the following hats for the team members, each representing one set of concerns:

Project Manager Hat


Concerned with the way of work, coordinating, facilitating, problem-solving, etc.

Investor Hat


Concerned with the return on investment and opportunity cost

Creator Hat


Concerned with the viability of the project's output, applicable standards, etc.

User Hat


Concerned with the needs and expectations of the customer and the end users

While multiple people may share some or all of the concerns in any of these groups, only one person wears the hat at any one time. The hats do not give them more authority in making decisions, but merely the responsibility for ensuring those concerns are addressed by the team.

When necessary, a single person can wear multiple hats (e.g., if it’s a single-person project). In such cases, the person should switch hats constantly without neglecting any of them.

These four hats should be distributed at Project Initiation by considering the team members’ skills before proceeding to the next management activity, A3.


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micro.P3.express is non-proprietary, open, and free for everyone.

micro.P3.express is designed for micro projects with 1 to 7 team members. For other projects, it’s best to use the regular P3.express.