Happy Projects
Created | Updated Nov 13, 2013
Happy Projects
There are few human endeavours where you will find more opportunities for entertainment, a sense of achievement through fine teamwork plus long term damage to your reputation than you’ll find when running a project.
At root the problem is this: It is vanishingly rare to succeed with a project.
In the unlikely event of your project going as smoothly as a baby’s bottom so that you achieve the right thing on time and, due to great planning, appear to encounter no great problems, you’ll be disappointed to find that no one will take a blind bit of notice.
If however you project goes normally, which is about as smooth as an very old alligator’s bottom, people will surround you with their unhelpful views on you how you should have done it, how they would have done it in your place and how your career and reputation is now in a terminal nosedive.
Now I know project management sounds like a deadly boring topic but it can be fun and make life for both you, your colleagues and your friends relatively bearable when you foolishly try to achieve something together.
That something you try to achieve together might be a wedding, a country fair, a school fete, opening a new club or restaurant, a new computer system or anything that involves a few people and a timescale. If you are building a power station why are you wasting your time reading this? You are supposed to know about all this stuff.
Project Management has been hijacked by expensive consultants in pin-striped suits but it can be kept easy, simple and, above all, cheap. It can be very helpful.
If the following sounds like loads of common sense, thanks. The author of these words has found common sense to be generally in very short supply, especially in himself.
Here are seven steps for a happy project
Make sure you all know what you are trying to do.
You will be amazed how the different people in a single group can have subtly or even widely differing ideas of the overall objective of a project. When this happens it will only be by coincidence that anyone’s expectations are achieved. Most people will end up disappointed however well it all goes. It is the assumptions that people make and don’t say that get you in the neck.
It pays enormously to spell out what you are trying to achieve, what is close to but not part of the project and how you will measure your own collective success. You need to know when to pat each other on the back.
Example: We’re going to run the school sports day on June 15th 2005. There will be a range of sports run to a published timetable. There will be first aid. The school provides the sports field but not all of the equipment. We need to publicise the event to attract parents. It will be a success if half of the parents attend and everyone has a great day out but no more than 3 kids go to hospital.
List the jobs that need to be done.
Break the overall target down into simple steps and write these down. Nothing keeps people awake at night more than mental the mental gymnastics required to keep a long list of tasks in mind. Apart from sex that is. Knowing that the list will be there in the morning helps people to sleep. This list will help to define the project and how you as a group are going to tackle it. Jobs nearly always have verbs in them.
Example: We need to fix a schedule, print a programme, design some posters, get permission to stick posters up, fix posters up (at least 3 weeks before event), list the missing equipment, borrow some sports equipment from school, recruit helpers, contact St Johns Ambulance Brigade, check out insurance…, check car parking, get prizes from local business and parents…..
Try to figure out when they need to be done.
Some tasks can be done independently of each other and can start right away. Other need to wait until other tasks are done. This is called project planning and you can but expensive software to help. Keep it sweet and simple. You might draw a barchart showing these tasks against a timescale.
Example: You cannot print the sports day programme until you have agreed the schedule.
Give each job to someone to care for.
Every job should have one person attached to it. They may not do all the work but they should make sure it gets done. Missing this stage will lead to some jobs not being done at all and lengthy discussions that start with ‘I thought you were doing that’. Missing this stage will also mean some jobs being done twice causing great confusion and lengthy discussions that start with ‘I thought I was doing that’.
Keep a check on how it pans out.
This will go wrong. Generally the first thing goes wrong eight and a half seconds into the project. Get the team together now and then, not too often and not too infrequently and run through the job list. Spend a little time on what has to date but concentrate on what remains to be done –at least you can manage the future. You’ll find it really easy to blame people but really hard to change history.
Don’t change names or numbers.
If you give parts of the project names or numbers don’t change them. Add a 17A or mark 13 as ‘no longer used’ but don’t renumber or rename. People get used to the names and numbers and there will be plenty of confusion without you adding to it. This technique also applies to motorway junction numbering.
End the Project
At project end some Middle Eastern builders sacrifice a goat. In European computer projects they often sacrifice the project manager. When the dust of your project has settled and the work is over, congratulate everyone that deserves it, share a pint together, go for a meal or in you own way celebrate your achievement.
Then hide before you get asked to run another
Good Luck
There are few human endeavours where you will find more opportunities for entertainment, a sense of achievement through fine teamwork plus long term damage to your reputation than you’ll find when running a project.
At root the problem is this: It is vanishingly rare to succeed with a project.
In the unlikely event of your project going as smoothly as a baby’s bottom so that you achieve the right thing on time and, due to great planning, appear to encounter no great problems, you’ll be disappointed to find that no one will take a blind bit of notice.
If however you project goes normally, which is about as smooth as an very old alligator’s bottom, people will surround you with their unhelpful views on you how you should have done it, how they would have done it in your place and how your career and reputation is now in a terminal nosedive.
Now I know project management sounds like a deadly boring topic but it can be fun and make life for both you, your colleagues and your friends relatively bearable when you foolishly try to achieve something together.
That something you try to achieve together might be a wedding, a country fair, a school fete, opening a new club or restaurant, a new computer system or anything that involves a few people and a timescale. If you are building a power station why are you wasting your time reading this? You are supposed to know about all this stuff.
Project Management has been hijacked by expensive consultants in pin-striped suits but it can be kept easy, simple and, above all, cheap. It can be very helpful.
If the following sounds like loads of common sense, thanks. The author of these words has found common sense to be generally in very short supply, especially in himself.
Here are seven steps for a happy project
Make sure you all know what you are trying to do.
You will be amazed how the different people in a single group can have subtly or even widely differing ideas of the overall objective of a project. When this happens it will only be by coincidence that anyone’s expectations are achieved. Most people will end up disappointed however well it all goes. It is the assumptions that people make and don’t say that get you in the neck.
It pays enormously to spell out what you are trying to achieve, what is close to but not part of the project and how you will measure your own collective success. You need to know when to pat each other on the back.
Example: We’re going to run the school sports day on June 15th 2005. There will be a range of sports run to a published timetable. There will be first aid. The school provides the sports field but not all of the equipment. We need to publicise the event to attract parents. It will be a success if half of the parents attend and everyone has a great day out but no more than 3 kids go to hospital.
List the jobs that need to be done.
Break the overall target down into simple steps and write these down. Nothing keeps people awake at night more than mental the mental gymnastics required to keep a long list of tasks in mind. Apart from sex that is. Knowing that the list will be there in the morning helps people to sleep. This list will help to define the project and how you as a group are going to tackle it. Jobs nearly always have verbs in them.
Example: We need to fix a schedule, print a programme, design some posters, get permission to stick posters up, fix posters up (at least 3 weeks before event), list the missing equipment, borrow some sports equipment from school, recruit helpers, contact St Johns Ambulance Brigade, check out insurance…, check car parking, get prizes from local business and parents…..
Try to figure out when they need to be done.
Some tasks can be done independently of each other and can start right away. Other need to wait until other tasks are done. This is called project planning and you can but expensive software to help. Keep it sweet and simple. You might draw a barchart showing these tasks against a timescale.
Example: You cannot print the sports day programme until you have agreed the schedule.
Give each job to someone to care for.
Every job should have one person attached to it. They may not do all the work but they should make sure it gets done. Missing this stage will lead to some jobs not being done at all and lengthy discussions that start with ‘I thought you were doing that’. Missing this stage will also mean some jobs being done twice causing great confusion and lengthy discussions that start with ‘I thought I was doing that’.
Keep a check on how it pans out.
This will go wrong. Generally the first thing goes wrong eight and a half seconds into the project. Get the team together now and then, not too often and not too infrequently and run through the job list. Spend a little time on what has to date but concentrate on what remains to be done –at least you can manage the future. You’ll find it really easy to blame people but really hard to change history.
Don’t change names or numbers.
If you give parts of the project names or numbers don’t change them. Add a 17A or mark 13 as ‘no longer used’ but don’t renumber or rename. People get used to the names and numbers and there will be plenty of confusion without you adding to it. This technique also applies to motorway junction numbering.
End the Project
At project end some Middle Eastern builders sacrifice a goat. In European computer projects they often sacrifice the project manager. When the dust of your project has settled and the work is over, congratulate everyone that deserves it, share a pint together, go for a meal or in you own way celebrate your achievement.
Then hide before you get asked to run another
Good Luck
