by Brad Egeland
A big project can quickly
become overwhelming without proper planning. Here's why breaking it down into
smaller tasks can save you time and money.
Too many times we dive into tasks
that are actually rather large without really thinking through how we can best
get from point A to point B. Our first thought is, “This can be that
hard...” so we just jump right in. Reality – sometimes days or weeks
later – tells us that was a bad choice to make. Has this ever happened to
you? Have you taken on a task or managed a large customer project
thinking you could "wing it" only to find you should have done more
"planning" before you ever started ‘working’?
The idea I’m discussing is the
concept of breaking big tasks or projects into more manageable detailed tasks
in order to keep your self on task, on time, on track and on budget.
Otherwise disorganization can takeover as well as frustration. And that can be
not just your frustration but the frustration of your co-workers, employees,
and unfortunately your customer.
Lets consider the typical project or
work task. Is time unlimited? Are time frames open ended? Have you ever
heard a customer, "Take as long as you need" when discussing the
effort to complete something you’ve promised to do for them? I don’t
think I’ve ever heard those words. In fact, depending on what business
you’re in, they likely wanted it yesterday even though they just came to you
today or you just finalized the contract today. Watch out, because those
are the customers that may never be satisfied, but that is a topic for another
article.
I’m a small business owner - and
entrepreneur like most or all of our readers here. But at the core of
that I am a project manager as well – a task manager to some degree. So I
tend to try to look at big tasks as projects – and how can we break this work
into smaller, meaningful, and manageable tasks that we can accomplish along the
way to the final finished task. Because, believe me, you’ll want those small
victories, those smaller completed tasks to not only guide you on the path to
finishing the overall work but also as accomplishments to motivate you to keep
going and keep focused on the end goals of this work or project.
How do you do that? Well, it’s
easier than you think. I’m used to using something detailed for big projects
like Microsoft Project, but that’s overkill for what we need to manage our
tasks on projects for our customers as small business owners. A simple spreadsheet
will usually do the trick. Look at the overall project – maybe it’s
something like create a business plan for a client. That’s one task that
may take you say, 40 hours, to complete for your client. But it’s
not one task. In reality it’s a series of smaller tasks that you can
track. What goes into creating the business plan? Well, likely
tasks such as…
- Interview the business owner
- Create a company description
- Describe the product or service
- Gather info for a market analysis
- Document a management strategy with dates and milestones and budget information (likely will need much more interviewing of the business owner)
- Consider the web strategy for the business
- Define the company’s management team and roles
- Create a profit / loss project
There’s probably more to it than
this, but each of these are significant tasks within the creation of a business
plan. And each of these would also have a likely review and approval
process with your client that you’re putting the business plan together
for.
Summary
You can see quickly how if you don’t
create a work breakdown structure with smaller tasks you can easily flounder
and get off track while you’re trying to accomplish the only real goal you do
have documented…the creation of a business plan. Breaking that work – and
estimating an effort and due date for those broken down tasks – helps to keep
you more focused and on track and definitely forces you to use your time more
wisely on the projects you take on for your customers.
Brad Egeland is an IT/Project
Management consultant and author with over 24 years of development and
management experience leading initiatives in Manufacturing, Government
Contracting, Gaming and Hospitality, Retail Operations, Aviation and Airline,
Pharmaceutical, Start-ups, Healthcare, Higher Education, Non-profit, High-Tech,
Engineering and general IT. Mr. Egeland is married, a Christian, and father of
7 living in sunny Las Vegas, NV. Visit his web site at www.bradegeland.com.
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