Jean Roberts

Developing a project mentality is an effective approach to business. Very simply, it means treating each major assignment, action-plan or responsibility as a project – with a beginning, a middle, and an end.

Together, project mentality and project management should help you handle the daily grind of business – as well as increase your job satisfaction.

Project management tools must support and reflect your own style of working, increase your sense of control in and over your business responsibilities, and add to your confidence and comfort.

Business of any nature and size requires making decisions – some of which will be complex and some will be easy.  But every decision then has to be implemented – and developing a project mentality is an effective approach.

Michaelangelo is not only the Project Manager’s mentor – he is the mentor’s mentor!

Eric Verzuh, President of The Versatile Company, a project management training and consulting firm based in Seattle, USA, makes this comparison in The Fast Forward MBA in Project Management, Wiley Publication 1999:

Project management isn’t new.  The pyramids and aqueducts of antiquity certainly required the coordination and planning skills of a project manager.  While supervising the building of St Peter’s Basilica in Rome, Michelangelo experienced all the torments of a modern-day project manager:

• incomplete specifications,
• insufficient labor,
• unsure funding, and
• a powerful customer.

Management of projects is a critical function within any organisation, and is not without its stresses and strains of varying intensity and consequence – as experienced by Michaelangelo in his major project, and countless other known and unknown managers of major and minor projects throughout time and in current times.

Definitions are always useful

The terms ‘project’ and ‘program’ can have different meanings in different contexts, for example:

• a ‘program’ can refer to an available pool of government funds with specifications for eligibility to apply: ‘project’ can refer to a specific activity, event or initiative funded through the program
• a ‘project’ can refer to the process of research, development, trialling and refining, with ‘program’ referring to the roll-out of the resulting replicable model
• a ‘project’ can refer to a major construction, with ‘programs’ referring to major stages or units of work within the major construction: each program would then consist of a number of activities, each of which would consist of a number of tasks.

However, the terms ‘project’ and ‘program’ are sometimes used interchangeably.  Practical and proven experience has shown that success of a ‘program’ or a ‘project’ depends upon detailed planning and preparation prior to implementation and evaluation.

Definitions for the purpose of this Core Business Strategy

Project

• a scope of work (which could be a service, program, publication, function, event, product or component) that can be specified, described, recognized, measured and justified:  it is designed to address or remedy an identified need, or capitalize on an identified opportunity, with a carefully designed and detailed plan that provides a valid basis for estimating, costing, budgeting, scheduling, monitoring and evaluation

Activity

• a planned series of tasks or actions designed to achieve or address a measurable outcome, which must be capable of being estimated, costed, budgeted, scheduled, implemented, monitored, evaluated and reviewed

Project Mentality

• the ability and willingness to think, plan and act by applying the following 4-Stage Project Framework, suitably adapted to the size and complexity of individual projects.

Project Management

• organising and monitoring the coordination of people, tasks, resources, systems, assessment of risk and assurance of quality in order to complete an approved plan to achieve specific outcomes within defined time and budget requirements and constraints
• project management may be undertaken with the benefit of appropriate software, qualification, experience, know-how, instructions and supervision

Most projects will have four Stages

Stage 1: Identifying and assessing the nature and extent of need, opportunity or problem

• identify the department, division, unit, team or person to be accountable for Stage 1
• identify existing and forward commitments
• identify (a) available and (b) accessible resources
• agree on the (a) nature and (b) extent of need, opportunity or problem to be addressed
• agree on the desired outcomes of the completed project

Stage 2: Project Design = designing, costing, budgeting and scheduling, based on Stage 1

• define and agree on the aim or purpose of the project in tangible terms
• draft the major stages in the project in sequential order, and undertake appropriate consultations before finalising them
• draft the activities necessary to satisfactorily complete each major stage
• detail the tasks necessary for satisfactory completion of each activity within each major stage, and use this level of detail to finalise the design, costing, budgeting and scheduling
• implement a thorough risk assessment
• design appropriate strategies to manage risk and ensure quality through Stage 3
• appoint a suitably experienced, qualified and available Project Manager

Stage 3: Project Management = implementation and evaluation of Stage 2

• resource the Project Manager to commence implementation
• ensure that core planning documents from Stages 1 and 2 are available and adhered to – or appropriately adapted
• commence the project evaluation process as early as possible, and treat evaluation as seriously as implementation

Stage 4: Project Evaluation = Post-program impact on your business of Stages 1, 2 and 3

• identify and measure the impact of anticipated and unanticipated activities, events or influences during Stage 3
• assess the impact or effect of the project upon Stages 1 and 2

On completion of the project

The Project Manager should examine and review all key perspectives to see:

• the nature and effect of both anticipated and unanticipated activities, events or influences associated with the project – these apply to both operational and financial aspects of the project
• whether the nature or effect is positive or painful, temporary or permanent
• the most obvious effects of identified change (either positive or painful), and who or what was responsible
• how to celebrate or capitalise on positive changes, and address or remedy painful changes.

Back to Michaelangelo

If you are tempted to feel weighed down by the responsibilities associated with project management, reflect on the experience of Michaelangelo – who didn’t have such resources as  computers, electricity, instant communication systems, local and global transport, professional associations, international or national standards.  Yet he managed – and dealt with – difficulties, challenges and problems which are still alive and well today:

• incomplete specifications,
• insufficient labor,
• unsure funding, and
• a powerful customer.

If you develop a project mentality and acquire skill and experience in project management, you are half way to surviving in this day and age.

Tools for this Core Business Strategy are provided in:

• Competitive Tendering – how to write a competitive tender
• Managing Governance in Nonprofit Organisations in Australia – book/CD ROM [wp_eStore:product_id:8:end]
• One Man Show – the smallest of small business
• Successful Submission Writing for Business and Nonprofit Organisations