Project management training tends to focus on large scale projects. These are projects which are worth a fortune, contain a high level of risk and have an almost endless list of stakeholders. This type of training can be extremely effective but for the vast majority of people it will not be necessary. Most people will never have to manage one of these large scale projects. They do not need a large and expensive project management course; they need a productive planning system.
Despite the fact that you might never have to manage a large scale project, you will encounter an endless amount of projects in your life which you must manage. To paraphrase productivity guru, David Allen, a project is any task which needs to be done which requires more than one action to complete it. When you view projects this way, you realise that you have to manage an abundance of projects each and every day. Most of these projects will not require any complex management. You can do them with little thought. However, there will be many projects which you to have to manage. In these instances, a productive planning system will enable you to complete the project to your desired standard, with little or no stress.
6 Steps for productive planning
Following the 6 steps below and making them a cornerstone of your planning process will allow you to complete your projects more effectively and with less stress.
1. Know your purpose
Purpose is a guiding light. When you have clear purpose, it is easier to determine the correct course of action in any given moment. When you stray off course, you can use purpose to guide you back to the right path. Productive planning requires that you know what you are aiming to achieve before you begin. That is why each project, each day and each task must have a clear purpose. Before you begin a new project, try asking yourself these 2 questions:
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- What is the end result which I am trying to achieve?
- What is the next action that I can take to lead me towards that end result?
These questions will enable you to stay on purpose by identifying the most appropriate task to complete at each stage. That is what productive planning is all about – performing the right task at the right time.
2. Develop a vision
Before you can realise that you have successfully achieved your objective, you need to know what success looks like. By developing a clear vision in your mind of how you would like the day or project to go; you provide yourself with a roadmap for success and a means to measure your progress.
3. Brainstorm ideas
Notice that I said brainstorm ideas; not brainstorm good ideas. Productive planning is often ruined when people attempt to qualify or evaluate their ideas before they shout them out or write them down. I cannot emphasise enough how much this approach ruins productive planning. When you start to evaluate your ideas, you shut down your stream of thoughts and you fail to look at the ideas objectively. You are guaranteed to miss out on some good ideas if you evaluate too early.
Brainstorming should be free from evaluation, criticism and rigid structure. It does not matter at this stage whether the ideas are good or bad. Just get the ideas out there. Set yourself a time limit and let yourself go mad generating ideas. If time runs out and you are still coming up with ideas; keep going until the stream of ideas stops.
4. Organise your ideas
Once you have finished brainstorming, take a short break to clear your mind. When you return you can start to evaluate and organise your ideas. As you come across ideas which you do not think are workable, do not discard them; move them to a separate file where you can view them again at a later stage. What does not seem workable now, may be workable at some stage in the future.
Now, take all of the good ideas and attempt to structure them into a workable project plan. Identify who will perform each task, when each task needs to be completed and in what order each task needs to be completed e.g. must task A be finished before task B can begin?
With productive planning, each person knows which tasks they are responsible and if necessary there are plans for automation, delegation and outsourcing.
5. Take action
When you have produced a plan, you now need to take action. You have produced a list of tasks and for the project which should now be fed into your personal productivity system to ensure that you take the right action at the right time.
6. Review
It is unlikely that you will get a large plan 100% correct at the first time of asking. That is why reviews are such an important aspect of productive planning. Planning is not a once off process. It is a continuous process which must be regularly monitored and reviewed to gauge progress and effectiveness.
As your tasks are fed into your productivity system, you will be able to measure progress during your weekly time management review. It is also important to schedule regular reviews for each specific project to make sure that you, and everyone involved, are keeping on track. This allows you to identify and correct mistakes before they can do any real damage to your plans.
Most people will never have to manage the massive projects which require specialised project managers. This does not mean that you will not have to manage projects throughout your life. Using David Allen’s definition, your entire life is filled with projects. You do not need a complicated system to manage these projects. In most cases, you will be able to complete them with little thought. For those that do require thought, you need a productive planning system. A productive planning system allows you to quickly develop a plan for completion of the project and contains built-in reviews to gauge progress and identify any changes which need to be made. By taking a small amount of time to do some productive planning, you will save a great deal of time, avoid a lot of stress and achieve greater results in your life.
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