Project Management for Small Business isn't boring!

How project management can help your small business

Great products, services and processes are at the heart of every successful small business. Developing your ideas into something that you can sell requires effort, discipline and a guided framework to get things right: that framework is Project Management.

Project management can help you manage many aspects of your small business including product development, testing, customer service, advertising, marketing, payroll, invoicing and other business processes. Used well, it's an excellent way to refine, tweak and create more effective and efficient ways of doing things.
Don't be put off by the rather grandiose title of 'Project Management', it's not something that should scare you. At a basic level, it’s really about applied common sense: knowing and planning what needs to happen when, who should do it and what you expect the outcome to be.

Project management is simply applied common sense, with a sensible approach and ways of doing things
Project management is simply applied common sense, with a sensible approach and ways of doing things
Source: FreeDigitalPhotos.net

What is Project Management?

Project management is a vast subject and there are hundreds of books, training courses, online resources, methodologies and more dedicated to teaching people how to become good project managers. Although you’ll certainly learn a lot from reading books and getting training, there are some simple elements of project management that you can learn without formal courses.
Definitions of what project management is include:
'Project management is the discipline of planning, organizing, motivating, and controlling resources to achieve specific goals.' - Wikipedia
‘At its most fundamental, project management is about people getting things done.' - Association for Project Management
'It’s a temporary group activity designed to produce a unique product, service or result.' - Project Management Institute
Let's explore some of the key elements that make something a project; projects are:
  • Temporary
  • Unique
  • Constrained
  • Planned
  • A series of steps
  • Outcome based

A project is 'temporary' and doesn't go on indefinitely

Projects don't last for ever (although some of the bigger ones can take years). Projects should have a defined beginning, when work starts, and a planned end, when work is delivered and everyone is (hopefully) happy with the results.

Projects are 'unique', not 'Business as Usual'

There are generally two types of business activities, 'Business As Usual' and 'Projects':
  • Business as usual - Ongoing business functions and processes that need to take place for a business to function (e.g. manufacturing, administration, financial control, employee processes, customer services etc.)
  • Projects - A project has unique outcomes. It doesn't produce the same things time after time, but has distinctive inputs (time, money, requirements, resources), processes (planning, project management, analysis, testing, implementation etc.) and outputs (milestones and deliverables)

Projects are 'constrained' by time, resources and scope

A project is 'constrained' or bounded by several areas:
  • Time - Most projects have to deliver something in a planned, specific amount of time
  • Budget / Resources - There is only a finite amount of money or other resources that can be spent on a project
  • Scope - The 'Scope' is exactly what a project impacts and delivers and is generally what the project is setting out to accomplish
These three things together are known as the 'OTOBOS Triangle' - On Time, On Budget, On Scope and if you can deliver a project to those three things, you are doing well!
The center of the OTOBOS triangle is 'Quality' and you generally can't affect one point of the triangle (e.g. Time), without also impacting the quality of the project (for good or bad).
You can mitigate this by changing one of the other points on the triangle, so for example if you reduce the time, you can maintain quality by also reducing scope or by increasing resources.
The OTOBOS (On Time, On Budget, On Scope) Triangle for Project Management
The OTOBOS (On Time, On Budget, On Scope) Triangle for Project Management

Projects are 'planned'

All successful projects have a plan, created at the beginning of the project and regularly reviewed and updated as the project continues. The plan will normally show:
  • What needs to be accomplished (scope, outcomes and quality)
  • Key deliverables (what's being created) and milestones (goals and deadlines)
  • Who is performing the various tasks (resources)
  • Time expected to be taken (cost and hours spent)
  • What is happening and when (timing)
  • Dependencies (if something relies on something else being completed)
Project plans can be as simple as a document that lists everything out, as complicated as a repository of documents or anywhere in between, as long as it serves your purpose. Project Management software will often output project plans as 'Gantt Charts'.
An example Gantt chart
An example Gantt chart
Moving House - An example of project steps
Moving House - An example of project steps

Projects are a 'series of steps'

A project will always have more than one task that needs to be accomplished, with larger deliverables and tasks split up into smaller and smaller tasks. As an example, if you were creating a project to move house, you might have part of it that looks like this.
The more that you can break a project down into deliverables, those deliverables down into tasks and those tasks down into sub-tasks, the more control you will have and ultimately the more likely your project is to be successful.

Projects are 'outcome based'

Projects are designed, created and managed to achieve change andadd value. If a project doesn't achieve one or both of those objectives, it probably isn't worth doing.
Examples of outcomes a project might help with are:
  • Advertising for, interviewing and taking on a new employee
  • Decorating your office space
  • Creating a more efficient invoicing and financial management process
  • Prototyping and testing a new product idea
  • Developing effective customer service processes
  • And many more...

How does it all fit together?

This picture illustrates how project managers, tasks and projects fit together to deliver your desired outcome.
An Introduction to Project Management for Small Business
An Introduction to Project Management for Small Business
A project manager coordinates everything and brings it all together
A project manager coordinates everything and brings it all together
Source: FreeDigitalPhotos.net

What does a project manager do?

The responsibilities of a Project Manager can vary widely, but in general they are responsible for:
  • Planning a project, reviewing that plan and ensuring it goes ahead
  • Organizing resources, people and budget so that what needs to happen is achieved when it needs to be by the people that need to do it
  • Managing people, processes and other aspects to ensure successful delivery of a project
  • Leading by example and working to remove barriers, risks and issues that prevent the project achieving what it needs to
  • Delegating appropriately to other areas
  • Controlling different aspects of the project and keeping things on track
  • Communicating with stakeholders, people impacted by the project and people working on the project
  • Reporting on what the project is going to do, how it is progressing and what it has achieved

source:http://paulmaplesden.hubpages.com/

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