Easy way to check if doing good PM is ask: 1) is there an Auditable Trail 2) can someone leverage your plan for another project. Check out 1 min. video:


If you can answer yes to both these questions, you can be more confident you are following best practices in project management.

Note:
Aspects of an Auditable trail must include: FORMAL documentation on why work is done, who does it, what they did, how they did it and how the work compared to the estimated plan (compare actuals vs the original process/plan).

Aspects of someone else able to leverage your work for a future similar project include: someone else can take your systematic approach, can see the logic behind it, use all your documentation, tools, templates, results, etc. and find value in using it to help them complete their project (save time, money, resources, risk, quality, etc).