Life is busy…. it’s a circus. But there is one thing that can bring some clarity to your life, some grounding, some focus – and that’s the calendar.
In biblical times, back when people used paper to write things down, there existed a phenomenon called ‘diaries’ and people would map out their day’s appointments, meetings and tasks in this ‘diary’ to keep on top of everything. Today, we have similar technology, but it’s widely available online.
For those who don’t know, my career was in Events and Project Management before I took the dive to pursue my deep love for technology. I was 17 when I hosted my first event, which naturally was a total flop, but great lessons to be learned from that story, and I’ve had the fantastic experience of working on Trinidad’s biggest event for the year, Soca Monarch.
Recently, I had the pleasure of guest lecturing for the Creative Media Production final year class, and the topic was project management. And I was tasked with giving a brief overview since that particular unit was around project design, implementation and evaluation. So I’ve taken my notes from that class and adapted them for a great blog post.
It’s important to define exactly what can be considered a project, because you might have tasks which you’re thinking are projects:
“A project is an endeavour in which human, material and financial resources are organised in a novel way to deliver a unique scope of work of given specifications, within constraints of cost and time, so as to achieve a purpose defined by both quantitative and qualitative objectives.” – Rodney Turner
Basically, a way to GET THINGS DONE (GTD).
There are several benefits of project management, many of them are obvious, but I’ll just name a few:
How can you identify a project from a task?
Properly planned projects deliver within cost/budget, scope, time, and quality.
Here are some definitions of terms I will use in this article:
Like all things in life, project management is ruled by a few laws, but I’ll mention the most notable of them all:
(Source: Wikipedia)
There are three main phases to simple Project Management:
There are more in-detail phases, but I thought that I’d just mention the most important of them all, and they really sum up project management quite nicely too.
The planning phase is the most work. A well planned project will go more smoothly than one not properly planned, but such are all things in life. The key is to plan, plan again, and again until you have a plan A, B, and C. You have to remember that Murphy loves it when you have projects, because it means that he has something to do… But you have to be prepared for him.
The next phase is execution. If you have a properly planned project, execution should be smooth, with a few bumps in the road which you took into consideration with your plans B & C. This is where the extra planning comes in handy. What do you do when a deliverable is late, or has run over budget? What do you do when a venue you booked was double booked? How do you mitigate these potential project-ending disasters? You have two contingencies, within which you catered for these things to actually happen, so now, it’s just a matter of executing something in plan B or C.
Evaluation has to be one of the most important parts of project management in moving forward. You have to look at what went wrong, and how you could have handled something better, or even how you could have planned better.
I’ve outlined some steps to follow to make your project management processes a lot easier.
Step 1: Define the Project Objective – What is the project looking to achieve? Define your aims, goals, and objectives.
Step 2: Define the Deadline and Time Scope – When do you need to finish this project by? How long do you have or giving yourself to finish your project?
Step 3: Define the work involved (Scope of the Project) – What must be done to make this project successful?
Step 4: Can you make that deadline with this project of this quality and scope with your workload AND your lifestyle? (If yes, skip step five) – Be realistic. Don’t try to set a project timeline what you know from now you cannot achieve by any means, because you will end up either with a half-baked project, or an incomplete one.
Step 5: Re-Evaluate the project until step four can be met.
Step 6: SWOT Analysis (Strength, Weakness, Opportunities, Threats) on new project idea – make certain you know what your weaknesses and threats are. This will help you decide if you need to refine your objectives or your timeline.
Step 7: Define your priorities – What is critical to completion and what is not? Where are your trade-offs? What are you willing to “shed” off as “dead weight” when it comes to crunch time?
Step 8: Determine who is doing what, when, where, how and why (Human Resource Scope) As long as you have other people involved in your project, you need to clearly define this so everyone will be on the same page.
Step 9: Create the schedule A (Work Breakdown Schedule) – This is your “if all goes well” plan. Remember to be realistic.
Step 10: Plan for the worst (schedule B) (Risk Management – Contingency plan) – This is for when Murphy pays you a visit. Remember to take all possible worst-case scenarios into consideration.
Step 11: Plan for the Zombie Apocalypse – This is when Murphy brings a friend or few. Make certain that you have everything that can possibly go wrong in here. This is for when core elements in your project go haywire. So like when a venue for an event is double booked, or a caterer suddenly cancels on you.
Step 12: Determine your means of communication – choose your method and stick to it. Email is generally the best since it leaves a reliable paper trail but in this age of technology, WhatsApp groups seems to be gaining popularity. Just remember to keep a backup of your conversations.
Step 13: Create a project plan and all team members must sign it and have copies – once you sign something, you agree with it. Your signature is on that agreement, and you’re now responsible for getting that element of the project done.
Step 14: Get executing; you’ve wasted enough time!
Planning tips:
Step 1: STICK TO THE SCHEDULE
Step 2: Communicate every step of the way
Step 3: Communicate every step of the way
Step 4: Communicate every step of the way
Step 5: Ensure all project objectives are met
Tips for PM:
If you answer all these YES, then you’re flawless and should be the best project manager in the Universe.
So, something went wrong. Let’s figure that out.
There are thousands of templates online for project charters, project plans, WBS’, SWOT analysis, etc. All you need to know is the basics, and how to use Google and you’re pretty much on the right track, to getting the initial resources together. It doesn’t matter what system you use, as long as the project is done on time, within budget, scope, and quality.