A Simple Project Management System
By
In this issue……
I'm starting an exciting new consulting project on Monday that will see me working helping a company to roll out a new piece of software that will form the 'backbone" of their business, allowing their customers easier access to services. Projects like this really excite me as this will really make an impact as to how this company not only moves forward in the future, but also how they develop and grow their business to experience better profits and freedom.
Its made me think about what the "core" or the "backbone" of my business is, and how that will facilitate me to achieve what I want. I've come to the conclusion that there is more work to do in that area, because after all, while an employees work may be done at 5pm each day, an entrepreneur's work is all play! I'd love to hear how you recognize what the "core" of your business is and how you stay true to it! Be sure to leave a comment below!
If you're still struggling to create systems in your business, here is an idea you could try:
Choose one repetitive task that you do on a regular basis that you really dislike doing, and doing it just one more time and whilst you're doing it, write the steps down that you take to complete it and make it into a checklist that you can hand over to someone else to follow in your team. If you are your team, this will be a good excuse to get an assistant on board!
When your assistant does the process for the first time, check to see if everything makes sense and importantly ask if they can see where any improvements can be made. Sometimes, all it takes is someone from the outside looking in to help us understand where efficiencies can be made!
My Project Management System
This newsletter article is a little different to the usual and I wanted to include something a bit more grassroots, so, here is an outline of the system I have used to plan my time and to track and manage my business building activities for developing my business.
Project Management Plan
- List all activities that you need to do in order to get your business ready to launch.
- Identify your project delivery date
- Work out how many months you have until your delivery date
- For each activity you identified choose the month that you need to do the activity in
- For each activity in each of the months, choose the week that you need to do it in
- Once you have the activities by month, and by week, you now need to identify an estimated time to complete the activity, and a target date within the week you nominated
- Next you will need to identify the milestones, or key activities where you think that it will be a real accomplishment when you have achieved it
- On your project plan, highlight your milestones so that they stand out, and now the important bit….
- Beside each of your milestone, write what your reward is, for example it might be a manicure, walk on the beach, indulgent food, dinner out etc etc
- Next is planning for contingency in your project management plan. For each activity you need to identify if a contingency plan is required in the event that the activity is not able to be delivered.
- A good way to do contingency planning is to go through each activity and ask yourself for each one "What would happen if this [your activity] didn't happen", and then rate your answer according to "nothing", "I could live without it" or "I can't launch my business without it". Anything that will prevent you from launching your business needs a contingency plan. A contingency plan, is basically an alternative to what you were previously going to do – a back up plan.
- Once you get to this level of planning – I would consider this to be your "baseline" project management plan – your starting point for moving forward.
I did find that several times throughout my building phase, I have had to "crash" my project management plan, because my timeframes were not being met, because I kept adding additional things in, and not getting to the ones on the list.
This is of course good, but what it means is that you must re-evaluate your overall project management plan timeframes, that is, where your activities are sitting in the plan, and whether or not they need to be moved as other things are added in, or perhaps things you had on there initially might even become redundant.
So, in a nutshell "crashing" your project plan is basically stripping away all the tasks and activities that are not critical to the delivery of your project – which is getting your business to a state ready for launching.
So……This is your high level project management plan. As each activity is completed you should cross if off, not delete it. Crossing it off, rather than deleting it is more about the psychology of recognizing how far you have come more than anything. Crossing off is recognition that every time you do it you are getting closer to where you want to be.
Each time you cross something off, include the date it was completed, and the amount of time it took, and compare that to what you had originally estimated. This is just useful to know for future reference in case you have to perform these activities again in another project!
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Kim Morris is a Business Systems Expert and Business Improvement Coach. Kim works with small business owners and entrepreneurs to help them to systemize and streamline their business. The beauty is that Kim uses a unique system that means you as the owner don't have to do all the systemizing yourself. To find out more about Kim's propriety system and learn how you can go from being a stressed out, time poor business owner to having an efficient and streamlined business where you can concentrate on what you love doing and not what you have to do, go to http://entrepreneursystems.
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