Managing Projects
When we talk of managing projects, strictly speaking, we don’t actually do projects. So what is a project? Well I would describe a project as a group of related tasks, that when performed, help you to achieve a specific outcome.
So this broad description, could describe anything from getting a tyre replaced to building a bridge, which is not particularly helpful. If instead we think of what our outcome is first, we can decide whether it can be achieved with one action or more than one. Many times, procrastination arises because the particular task we keep putting off isn’t actually a task but is a project. Therefore when we are performing our daily In-to-Empty routine , we should analyse each item to see if it is actually a project.
Here is an example. One day you are going through your cold call telephone list and you realise, that you might be better off with a script. So you write in your notebook – “write telephone sales script” as a to-do item. Then when you come to process this entry, at your daily review, you then transfer this to your To Do list. But this is where it stays. Every time you have some discretionary time, you come to this entry on your list and you flinch. You just can’t face doing it. Procrastination has struck.
The reason you are numb to this task, is that it isn’t a task, it’s a project and you need to treat it as such. The following is a simple procedure to go through with to do items like this, to break them into lovely little manageable chunks that you will love to do.
Why?
Every project needs a purpose, or why should you start it. This should be your first question. Why should I spend any time or energy on this project?
Well let’s take our sales call script example. You would write down all the reasons for starting this project. What will you gain? In this example, having a script would mean that your calls would be consistent. You could track your success rate and tweak your script to see if you can get better conversion results. Ultimately your sales will improve, which means more commission and cash in your pocket, more job satisfaction – result happiness. So we can proceed with this project. What if we can’t come up with a compelling reason to proceed with a project? Well we should just stop there and remove the project from our list.
What exactly is the outcome?
The next question we should ask is what exactly are we trying to achieve. What is the outcome? You should be specific as you can with this. What are the tangible results you will gain?
For instance in our telephone script example the outcome would be that we will use a written script for all our cold telephone canvassing calls. Usually something quite amazing happens at this stage. Just through the action of writing the purpose and specific outcome, our creative juices start to flow. Once the ideas start to flow, we should get them written down.
Mind Maps
Mind maps are great for getting ideas down and seeing the links. There are loads of good mind mapping software tools, but if you ask me, you can’t beat a piece of blank paper and a pen. If you are new to mind mapping or need a bit of a refresher, I can recommend the inventor of mind mapping, Tony Buzan in one of his many booksMind Mapping
Once you have your mind map, you can start to make associations and links. Are certain areas linked to others? Again a picture is worth more. The branches and sub branches are then actually individual tasks that you can do.
Post-It notes
Next, I like to start to transfer the main ideas/subtasks onto post-it notes. There is nothing more elegant than sticking these post-it notes to a white board, so that you can organise them into some kind of chronological sequence.
Organising tasks
Next, as hinted at above, we can organise our post-it notes into a logical sequence. You might find that this process will also jog your mind and you will think of further additional tasks that you need to do.
Strategic Next Actions
Although it is great to have a detailed plan of all the actions you need to take, the most important thing you need to have nailed down is the next action. If there is one thing you take from this whole process of managing your projects effectively it is this: You only need three things to complete a project successfully:
- A purpose – why are you doing this project?
- A specific defined outcome.
- A next action – often called a strategic next action SNA
Your SNA is the next thing that needs to happen to move your project towards completion. Once you have completed this SNA, guess what, you should define the next SNA. You keep repeating this until you reach completion. This is particularly useful for those tricky, murky projects. You know the ones; the ones where you have no idea on how you will complete the project ie you know the Why and the What, but not the How.
With this method of using a SNA, you don’t need to know every single step in the process of how you will complete the project – all you need is the next action. A good example would be setting up a business. Having read a huge amount of business literature over the years, from what I can tell the successful entrepreneurs, don’t really have a clear detailed plan. They just had a clear objective, a deadline, a good compelling reason why and they figured out what to do next. They just kept on doing the next thing repeatedly.
Project Task Lists
Although you don’t need a detailed plan, it is useful to be able to collate all of a project’s related actions in one list. For this reason, I recommend that you use a separate simple Project Task List. This can be as simple as a sheet of paper, with the name of the project and outcome written at the top, followed by a list of actions related to it. You can fill one of these out for each of your projects. The beauty is that you can add to it (and remove) as you progress through your project.
Project Lists and Goals
I don’t recommend working on more than three projects at a time, especially if you have multiple goals as well. In an ideal world you would only be concentrating on one thing at a time until you complete it. Unfortunately, we are not all lucky enough (yet) to be able to focus on one project to the exclusion of everything else. Many of us have multiple areas of focus and with them, many projects that need to be tracked.
I use (again) a simple written list to track my projects. I work only on a maximum of three projects at a time. See the post The Power of Focus. I will only start on a new project once, all three are completed. In this way, I keep my focus, whilst also acknowledging that I can’t completely shut out all the other areas of focus.