Project management – Defined in the quotation “Projects, activities, projects – Planning, Executing, Realising – Plan, Plan, Plan”. As you would find on a prince2 project management online course e learning.
At my company, we’re a major developer of spreadsheets and other tools that are central to project management. It’s what we do and what we usually do very well. It’s what we enjoy. We’re an independent service business largely responsible for our own revenues, and we have found to be really successful. Now, with the benefit of over two decades, we’ve found a new focus in that we serve not only financial market areas such as project management and IT, but we have developed and extended our services to areas like education (colleges and universities), sales, service areas like community events, and even to government departments like those of health, income security, and public sector. In short, there is scope for us to add and develop our services into new areas that continue to grow and emerge. I’m not sure this is your norm for project management, but what do you have in place to manage the variety and requirements you have, that as an organization, will influence what you can do and what you can offer?
The project life-cycle
Projects are actually very simple. A project is started, “worked on”, and completed. It’s an important detail that in over half the organizations world-wide, is identified by the project life-cycle. (In countries like Australia or Canada, this is called the “T” strategy, time-based strategy – see discussion about that below). These are the steps or phases of a project. Some typical examples of how projects are described by their life-cycle are shown below:
Finally, this section should be about project legacy. By creating your own legacy, you may be seen to be a “tame and the aggressive” organization. That certainly is in the interest of controlling cost. But you can learn from your projects and use them to your advantage. This is a time for you to leverage the experience your stakeholders, its mentors, and your leadership team has gained, without being the burden of doing it yourself via trial and error. Take the time to document what you did, what you learned, and how all this changed your business and/or the people who were working on the project teams. Then use that documentation as a template to create your own template for future projects.
Projects – A very broad discipline to cover but a very simple system can be used to do it. Most of the work that the non-programmer reader will need to do will be due to the usefulness of Gantt charts and the use of data layers. All others could be conceptually described as a list of activities with names and projected times, and time-boxed dates for each effort. Nothing will be Conclusion.
With warranted anticipation, I hope you will lay out your ideas in interdisciplinary terms. Check and re-check for accurate and relevant information. Recognize that this philosophy is a challenge to old ways of doing things. This is a time of change. The past is over, and new and very different approaches will be required. In the face of this, do not be tempted to state “we’ve always done it this way”, because that may be a springboard for your competitors to impudently question your strategic direction and benefit! Otherwise, hold your position. But think about the signs which may indicate that a new approach needs to be considered.
Remember, this is a time when you must stand alone or, even better, with your allies but and of course with their unsentimental mates, you will have to interact more with your clients to “get your message across” and to improve your position because with the decision-makers, the “Bottom Line”, the engagement process can be full of sleepless nights. You may even wonder whether to risk it because everyone can jump on your “new” path and go with you or “go other.” If you have been lucky, you will not have to make much “post-publication outreach”, and sales may be less of a concern when this comes to market acceptance, etc. Also, if you are not operating an organization that may need this sort of support right now – great! However, the best time to prepare for having to deal with this is when you are not feeling threatened – because that is the time to be revenue-driven, considering your well-beyond-our-comfort zone statements and looking for direction and solutions.
