If you are not a parent, do not leave this little analogy on how project management and parenting have real elements of similarity- this is all still relevant to you.
Project management begins when a concept is to be taken from an idea into a reality.
Parenting begins in a similar way. Certainly for the first child, the parents have only a vague notion of what it will be like. Then they hear those famous words from the mid-wife or doctor saying “it’s a boy or it’s a girl or it’s triplets (ahem!)” and it brings them firmly into the world of parenting.
In business parlance, parenting would be a program of work to deliver a well-rounded individual out into the world. (more…)
Is your business too small to take credit card transactions? Are you getting caught out with cheques “bouncing”? Well with the introduction of the Square, that may no longer be an issue.
The scrum – it conjures up images of two teams battling it out on the rugby pitch for possession of the ball. In the context of this post though, nothing as sporty I’m afraid. However, scrum is a very useful methodology that can be applied to your business projects.
Scrum is a way of working that, as part of your project, you deliver pieces of the project that can be understood by the end-customer. To help you along, lets design and build a house as our project.
Keeping up with trends and understanding your market environment is key for any business owner. The last thing that you want is to be letting down your customers or falling behind your competition because you are not current with changes or trends in your business arena.
Successful entrepreneurs are a breed to their own. They are people who take personal responsibility. They are people who are prepared to do whatever it takes to make their business or project successful. They are people who always have a plan!!
A franchise is the simplest example. Same name, same products, similar locations, same customers – yet different coffee shops / sandwich bars achieve widely different results. This is a fact. But why? The answer is because of the owner/driver. The name, concept, what you charge, etc, in the bigger picture are irrelevant. It is purely down to hard work, conviction and getting the most out of your people.
Have you not noticed how successful people can easily migrate between industries? This is because successful people don’t get caught up in ideas or names or the market.
But why? We’re doing just fine. Well if you are doing just fine, then you are already operating effective project management and you can give yourself a pat on the back… but if not hopefully this will give you a bit of a steer!
To simply answer the question of why, if you don’t have an orderly way of delivering your services to your customers (project management methodology) then at least one or, gulp, a fabulous combination of the following will happen – sorry but it’s a fact!
I read a great blog recently about compelling events and it got me thinking about the way that many of us in business project manage our customer deliveries.
The context of the compelling events article was essentially that each event had adefined date and were as a result of a particular business event. The one piece of the post that provoked my thoughts was the element discussing the need to understand the customers compelling event i.e. why is the customer doing this project in the first place?
For a full description of risk management, feel free to click just here (warning though, it’s pretty heavy duty stuff!). Or you could just read on for a minute or two and I’ll explain it as I see it from a business project management perspective.
So what is risk management?
Identifying possible problems/issues/risks that could occur during a piece of work/project.
Thinking about how likely the risk is and if it occurs its impact.
Thinking about whether you can accept the risk (risk tolerance)
Planning what you will do if you encounter those problems/issues/risks.
Managing the risk if it does occur.
Managing risks when they occur that you hadn’t thought of before (oops!)
Learning for next time around.
That’s pretty much it. As with many of our other management principles, we have simply over-analysed and over-complicated what it is and this is scaring people off applying the principle of risk management to their business project deliveries.
When project management is discussed outside of an IT or Engineering environment, one of two things happen;
Conversation stops dead and a new topic is hastily brought in – far removed from the subject of project management.
The attitude is “thats an IT thing, its too complicated for me, not needed by me, couldn’t be bothered learning about it, project management – I don’t care”.
I bet you’re already starting to doze off. Try and stay with me, this is important for everyone in business including you.
