I DON'T DO THAT ... AND WHY YOU SHOULD

When was the last time you revisited your job description …. What a load of rubbish that turned out to be … they’re like horoscopes.  Vague enough to capture everything that might happen but not exact enough to direct you in want you are doing.  They are clearer in a business-as-usual environment but put a project into the equation and well you have no chance of being specific about what is required all the time.

And this gives the company and the employees a problem, a big assuming problem.  The thing with projects is that they are all different and that means although the generic actions are the same, the detailed roles and responsibilities are different for everyone.  But being human, we tend to feel more secure with our role and requirements will be constant.

Cue missed actions, finger pointing nonsense or inability to do something the most effective way (I love nonsense, makes me smile, but I get that it’s not a good thing to cultivate!)

So how do you manage what needs to be done on the shiny new project, effectively and especially what needs to be done effectively but isn’t going to be?

IDEA
You could re-invent the wheel at the start of every project… Review everyone’s roles and re explain them to them.  This will soon become laborious and ignored.  Another shiny new procedure that goes by the wayside, consumers people time. 

You could wipe the slate clean, employ a whole new project team, for very large projects this is a way, but not for us.

If you could just nudge and tweak from the previous project, that would be so much less controversial and effort. 

Adjust the roles that need to be adjusted and keep the ones that don’t.  (Your processes should be done simultaneously, but well let’s not get side-tracked)

Simple… phew.

SYNOPSIS
With each project being different they require slightly different processes and actions to manage them.

We don’t want to reinvent the wheel for every project, but we can’t let people assume they will be doing exactly the same thing as the last project.

Oh and we need to get going on with this project fast… we always need to get going fast!

SOLUTION
Let’s start with what’s the best way to do anything efficiently … understand it, don’t make rash decisions, find a solution and communicate it!

Then lets understand the basics, project consists of two areas the doing and the managing.  The doing is the production, it’s the work packages.  It’s the production, it’s the cake.

The managing is getting that work done, it’s the recipe, the mixing and the timing and you need to get the right recipe balance to make the best cake, from the start.
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What items do you need to make your cake / manage a project? 

Well a project consists of 14 areas:

1. Business case
2. Organisation
3. Quality
4. Plan
5. Risk
6. change
7. progress
8. finance
9. comply
10. procurement
11. develop
12. engage supplier
13. engage user
14. deliver scope

The actions that you will need to perform will all fall into one of these categories.  It seems a lot doesn’t it!  Yes ….  And that’s the reason for assessing them … there are a lot of actions that could be performed but actually very few that need to be … depending on the project.

If you carry on the same as the last project … you’ll be either doing things unnecessarily or won’t be doing ones that are!

There are various assessments and tools on my website download section that may help if you want to understand further.  Or drop me a line, I’d be delighted to explain more.
 
I'd love to hear your views, experiences and comments and if you're interested in finding out more, drop me a line.

Thanks for reading
​Simon