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It is amazing how many of the great events of history, the great battles in the wars that determined the fate of empires, the great turning points in human life, that have failed because a single person did not build in that little bit of extra time that was necessary to assure that everything worked properly.
Don’t let this happen to you.
14. Practice Crisis Anticipation
One of the most important parts of project management is called “crisis anticipation.” This is what you do when you study the overall project and ask, “What can possibly go wrong?” Murphy’s Laws were developed by people who worked on projects of all kinds. These laws say, “Whatever can possibly go wrong, will go wrong. And of all the things that can possibly can go wrong, the one thing that will go wrong will be the worst possible thing, at the worst possible time, and cause the most amount of money.”
Another of Murphy’s Laws is that , “Everything takes longer than you expect.” Still another is that “Everything costs more than you budget for.”
The key to crisis anticipation is to think through in advance the different delays and setbacks that can possibly knock the project off schedule. Where could you have an obstacle or setback that would threaten the successful completion of the project?
Once you have determined the worst possible thing that can happen, make sure that it doesn’t happen. Provide against it in advance.
15. Develop a Plan B
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Develop alternative courses of action. Chancellor Otto Von Bismarck, the great European statesman, who assembled the many principalities of Germany into a single state, was famous for his diplomatic skills. No matter what happened, he always seemed to have a detailed backup plan as an alternative. This became known as the “Bismarck Plan” or “Plan B.”
You should always have a Plan B as well. You should always imagine that something unexpected will happen and that you will have to do something completely different from what you set out to do. The more time that you take to develop a fully functioning alternative, the greater strength and resilience you will have, no matter what happens.
Continually Develop Options
In life, you are only as free as your options. You are only as free as your well-developed alternatives. If you do not have options or alternatives already developed, you may find yourself trapped into a single course of action. If something goes wrong with that plan or course of action, you can be in serious trouble.
Many of the greatest successes in history were made possible because the person in charge had taken the time to think through what might possibly go wrong, and then made provisions against it. When it did go wrong, he was ready with a second plan.
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It is important that you never trust to luck when you plan a project. Hope is not a strategy. Remember the words of Napoleon, when he was asked if he believed in luck. He said, “Yes, I believe in luck. I believe in bad luck. And I believe that I will always have it, so I plan accordingly.”
Four Problems to Avoid
There are four main problems in project management. Each of them can be avoided by taking the time to think carefully before embarking on a new project.
1. Not Allowing Enough Time
The first is not allowing enough time to complete a multi-task job. This is the primary reason why projects fail and people’s careers get sidetracked or torpedoed. They hope for the best, trust to luck and don’t allow a sufficient cushion of time to complete every step of the project. As a result, the project fails.
2. Assuming the Best
The second problem is assuming that everything will work out all right. As Alex McKenzie said, “Errant assumptions lie at the root of every failure.”
Never assume that everything will work out all right. Assume that you are going to have problems. Allow yourself sufficient time and resources to solve those problems and keep the project on schedule.
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3. Rushing at the End
The third problem in project management is when the project team ends up rushing at the end. When you rush to complete a project, because you have run out of time or money, you almost invariably make mistakes and do poor quality work that you have to go back and correct later. It actually takes less time to finish a project correctly if you work at it slowly and steadily and do it properly in the first place.
4. Trying to Do Several Things at Once
The fourth problem in project management is trying to do several things at once, and ending up doing nothing well. You either take on too many responsibilities yourself, or you assign too many responsibilities to other people. In either case, various parts of the project fall through the cracks and sometimes all the effort is lost. Do things one at a time, and do each thing well before moving to the next task.
Plan Your Projects Visually
One of the most powerful methods for designing and managing a project is called “Storyboarding.” It was originally developed by the Walt Disney Corporation to plan cartoons and movies and was eventually used in every part of the business.
In storyboarding, you create a visual image of the project, mounted on the wall, so that everyone can see it and comment on it. You begin with a large 172
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corkboard. You then get boxes of pins or thumbtacks and stacks of 3 x 5 and 5 x 8 index cards. Get several felt pens with different colors. You are then ready to begin.
Across the top of the board, write the major parts of the project in one or two words, on 5 x 8 index cards, with the colored felt pens. These are very much like the titles of the chapters of a book, and are called “headers.” You may have anywhere from three to 10 different headers as the main parts of the project.
Under each of the headers, you place 3 x 5 index cards. You list an individual step in the completion of the task on each of the 3 x 5 cards.
When you are finished, you will have created a visual representation of the entire project, showing what needs to be done, and in what order. You can then write the name of the person who is responsible for each of the jobs on the card listing the job.
With this layout, you can move headers and job descriptions around. You can change their order and schedule. You can change the person who is responsible and the deadline.
You can also use storyboarding with a sheet of paper. You can write a series of larger boxes across the top and then write a series of steps in each of those tasks in boxes underneath. The more visual you can make the project, the easier it is for you to see relationships between the various tasks, and to make whatever changes are necessary to assure that you complete the project on time.
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Storyboarding Individual Job Descriptions
One way that you can use storyboarding is to pin a series of 5 x 8 cards across the top of the corkboard and put the names of a team member on that card. Below each person’s name, on 3 x 5 index cards, you write the specific tasks that that person will be expected to complete, along with the deadline.
This gives everyone a visual representation of the relationship between themselves and everyone else, and makes it clear what is to be done, by whom, and by what time.
You then list each person’s tasks in order of priority, from the first thing they will be expected to do, to the last thing.
Each time you have a staff meeting, you compare each person’s various tasks and functions as they are represented on the corkboard. With this visual picture, you can revise responsibilities, and move the various cards around. This form of visual representation of a project stimulates creativity and dramatically increases the clarity of the project to everyone who is involved in completing it. It increases the likelihood that the project will be completed successfully, on time and in a quality fashion.
Mailing a Newsletter
Here is an example of a multi-task job that our company completed using this project management system. In this case, it was a newsletter. We brought together the team in the company that was going to be responsible 174
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for the various jobs that had to be done to send out a newsletter successfully.
We then listed all the tasks in sequential order, and the in which they would have to be completed.
These were the tasks that we concluded had to be done: First, we defined the desired results, the goal that we had for producing and sending the newsletter in the first place. What would be the ideal result? We then used this result as our target or our goal, and everything that we did in the design of the newsletter was aimed at achieving that result.