The art and science of project management

The first and most important step in any project is defining its scope. In simple terms, this is a way of identifying the ‘long and the short’ of a project. What is it you are trying to achieve? What is the project’s objective?

It is equally important to decide what is outside the project. This will avoid the temptation to be too ambitious and set you up for success rather than failure. Breaking complex projects down into smaller ones can help create a sense of ongoing achievement towards an overall goal.

There are some key steps within scoping:

• Define your overall objective – Collect facts, opinions and needs; question assumptions and, if appropriate, perform an overall SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats) analysis. Ensure your objectives conform to SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time-framed) criteria
• Determine your available resources – What people, facilities, finance and time do you have available to achieve the project objective?
• Establish a timeline – When does the project have to start by and when should it be completed? As you develop your plan, you may wish to add a contingency to allow for unanticipated events along the way
• Assemble a project team – Who do you need on the project if it’s to be a success? Get them together and starttalking. They are the technical experts in any task, which is why you have them on your team. It is your job to manage them.

Pause to reflect

Think about a long standing issue you know you need to deal with. It could be improving a process, or investigating whether a new product or service will meet a need in your community.

Using the four step process described for defining a project, develop an overall objective; think about the resources you have available; establish an ideal timeline by which you’d like a result, and think about who would form your project team.