Before studying project management in pursuit of my MBA, I thought of project management as being very technical and complicated. The truth is however, project management is very intuitive. It consists of skills that people use every day, with the addition of… discipline. That’s the rub. Discipline is the key to success in business, and, what many of us fail to realize, our personal lives as well.
Project management is all about managing four variables: time, money, resources, and scope (defined outcome). What is a project? A project is a temporary endeavor undertaken to create a unique result (I will make sure to provide this definition in each post to drive home the fact that our lives are full of projects). So, whether it be your child’s first birthday party, painting a room in your house, landscaping your yard for the spring, or planning your family vacation; the discipline of managing the allotted time, money, resources, and scope is necessary to ensure successful results. Let’s look at each variable individually, to ensure we have a clear understanding of what they mean:
Scope: As mentioned above, scope is, in a nutshell, a description of what the outcome of the project should be. The definition of scope in simplified terms is the work required, and only the work required, to complete a project successfully. Therefore, managing scope means that you are ensuring that your outcome in nothing more, or nothing less, than originally identified as being desired. If you are planning your family vacation, the scope identifies who is going, where you are going, and how long you will be there. Once you have identified what the goal is, you can proceed in managing each aspect of the planning process, with your scope, or end result in mind. The scope is critical. If anything changes in your scope, it will most definitely have an effect on the variables of your project – time, money, or resources.
Example:
Let’s consider the family vacation again. If it was originally planned that only your immediate family would go on the vacation (consisting of four people), but three weeks prior to the vacation it was decided that a cousin would accompany you as well, that would have a direct impact on one, some or all of the project variables – time, money and resources. The number of people on the vacation has increased, so that is an automatic adjustment of resources, and if you don’t want to impact the money you have to spend, you will have to shorten your time on vacation. You can’t change the scope of the project without impacting at least one of the variables.
• Resources: Resources are very simply, the people, equipment, or material that you have available to complete your project.
Example:
In a landscaping project, who are the people that would assist? Possibly a family member or hired help. How about the equipment that you would use? Perhaps you would require an aerator for your grass, a spreader for seeds, a hedge trimmer? And then what materials would you need to make your yard look the way you want? Red lava rocks, weed blocker, or maybe landscaping bricks (speaking from my own landscaping experience). All of these components are considered resources in a landscaping project.
• Money: We all know what money is…. And in the context of project management, money refers to costs.
Example:
If you are beginning the project of painting a room in your house, how much money do you have set aside to complete the project? Considering the cost of paint, brushes, painters tape, floor/furniture covering, how much will the project cost you? This cost, and the management of it, makes up the money management aspect of project management.
Time: Every project involves a limited amount of time. If you are planning a 1st birthday party, your time limit is from the time you decide to have the party, to the day of the party. Whether it is two weeks, or a month, your project cannot extend past that birth date or party date. Within that limited amount of time, there are tasks to be completed to achieve your scope, or the party that your envision. Each task will have a duration, or required amount of time to complete. The tasks will also likely have to occur in a specific order with some tasks requiring completionI before other tasks can be carried out. The subsequent tasks are therefore considered to have dependencies (meaning they are dependent on other tasks). All of these aspects of time, including tasks durations and dependencies, need to be considered in your time management
Example:
It is September 2nd, and your son’s birthday is October 18th. You want to have a party to celebrate his 1st birthday (scope). So, you have 16 days to plan and implement this project/party. You know exactly how long you have, and now you have to determine what tasks are necessary to have the party. The duration of each task has to fit within the total time allotted for planning (16 days), and tasks must be carried out in order to ensure there is no delay that would cause you to miss your deadline – more details on this later. All of these considerations fall into the time management aspect of project management.
Now that we have broken down project management into the four main components, it is clear that these are variables considered in juggling our everyday responsibilities….. not rocket science! So, if project management is so intuitive, why aren’t more people using it to drive desired results in their personal lives? That is exactly what I hope to address and change with this blog. Project Management really is an excellent tool For Everyday Living.
Project management is all about managing four variables: time, money, resources, and scope (defined outcome). What is a project? A project is a temporary endeavor undertaken to create a unique result (I will make sure to provide this definition in each post to drive home the fact that our lives are full of projects). So, whether it be your child’s first birthday party, painting a room in your house, landscaping your yard for the spring, or planning your family vacation; the discipline of managing the allotted time, money, resources, and scope is necessary to ensure successful results. Let’s look at each variable individually, to ensure we have a clear understanding of what they mean:
Scope: As mentioned above, scope is, in a nutshell, a description of what the outcome of the project should be. The definition of scope in simplified terms is the work required, and only the work required, to complete a project successfully. Therefore, managing scope means that you are ensuring that your outcome in nothing more, or nothing less, than originally identified as being desired. If you are planning your family vacation, the scope identifies who is going, where you are going, and how long you will be there. Once you have identified what the goal is, you can proceed in managing each aspect of the planning process, with your scope, or end result in mind. The scope is critical. If anything changes in your scope, it will most definitely have an effect on the variables of your project – time, money, or resources.
Example:
Let’s consider the family vacation again. If it was originally planned that only your immediate family would go on the vacation (consisting of four people), but three weeks prior to the vacation it was decided that a cousin would accompany you as well, that would have a direct impact on one, some or all of the project variables – time, money and resources. The number of people on the vacation has increased, so that is an automatic adjustment of resources, and if you don’t want to impact the money you have to spend, you will have to shorten your time on vacation. You can’t change the scope of the project without impacting at least one of the variables.
• Resources: Resources are very simply, the people, equipment, or material that you have available to complete your project.
Example:
In a landscaping project, who are the people that would assist? Possibly a family member or hired help. How about the equipment that you would use? Perhaps you would require an aerator for your grass, a spreader for seeds, a hedge trimmer? And then what materials would you need to make your yard look the way you want? Red lava rocks, weed blocker, or maybe landscaping bricks (speaking from my own landscaping experience). All of these components are considered resources in a landscaping project.
• Money: We all know what money is…. And in the context of project management, money refers to costs.
Example:
If you are beginning the project of painting a room in your house, how much money do you have set aside to complete the project? Considering the cost of paint, brushes, painters tape, floor/furniture covering, how much will the project cost you? This cost, and the management of it, makes up the money management aspect of project management.
Time: Every project involves a limited amount of time. If you are planning a 1st birthday party, your time limit is from the time you decide to have the party, to the day of the party. Whether it is two weeks, or a month, your project cannot extend past that birth date or party date. Within that limited amount of time, there are tasks to be completed to achieve your scope, or the party that your envision. Each task will have a duration, or required amount of time to complete. The tasks will also likely have to occur in a specific order with some tasks requiring completionI before other tasks can be carried out. The subsequent tasks are therefore considered to have dependencies (meaning they are dependent on other tasks). All of these aspects of time, including tasks durations and dependencies, need to be considered in your time management
Example:
It is September 2nd, and your son’s birthday is October 18th. You want to have a party to celebrate his 1st birthday (scope). So, you have 16 days to plan and implement this project/party. You know exactly how long you have, and now you have to determine what tasks are necessary to have the party. The duration of each task has to fit within the total time allotted for planning (16 days), and tasks must be carried out in order to ensure there is no delay that would cause you to miss your deadline – more details on this later. All of these considerations fall into the time management aspect of project management.
Now that we have broken down project management into the four main components, it is clear that these are variables considered in juggling our everyday responsibilities….. not rocket science! So, if project management is so intuitive, why aren’t more people using it to drive desired results in their personal lives? That is exactly what I hope to address and change with this blog. Project Management really is an excellent tool For Everyday Living.
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