Project management: How competent subordinates “goof off”

Hello. This is Irino, a strategy consultant.

I will explain in detail about project management in this edition of how to write a business plan document. “It’s good to have a business plan, but can you actually execute it?” This section deals with this issue.

The positioning of Project management

Executive summary
Background
Management team
Company overview
Management and business principles
Product/service overview
How your profits are made
Analysis of the market and the competitors
Marketing and sales strategies
Operation plans
Personnel strategies
Start-up strategies
Growth strategies
Exit strategies
Financial plans :
– Sales forecast
– Cost plans
– Financing forecast
– Capital policies
Risk management
Project management

First of all, you should be aware of the fact that Project management for venture companies is a little different from large scale projects of major corporations.

Do’s & Don’ts for Beginners

■　Don’t manage PMBOK perfectly

The whole package of “project management process” defined as project management methods such as PMBOK (Project Management Body of Knowledge) or CMM (Capability Maturity Model) are below.

・Progress management
・Issue management
・Cost management
・Quality managemnt
・Organizational/needed personnel resource control
・Communication managemnt
・Risk management
・Procurance/purchase management
・Outsourcing management
・Change management
・Framework management
・Documents management

It is really not advisable for venture companies to fill in necessary forms, report and close on every management task there is. The reason is because

The man-hour necessary for managing these projects could be too much of a load for project leaders (≒chief executives).

It slows down the speed of decision-making.

Members could lose ideas, self-initiative and motivation.

Project management and Issue management are pretty much indispensable. However you need to consider points such as:

Whether to manage using the dates on calendar without writing WBS.

Whether to utilize Issue management chart orally without writing down.

You need to be well-modulated considering the nature of your project or the levels of your members and the ultimate form of Project management for venture companies is not bringing in the whole package of PMBOK, but actually not managing it at all.

Do’s & Don’ts for Intermediate Entrepreneurs

■　Include plan revision tasks

There is one thing certain about business plans. That is, things won’t go the way you have planned. Business plan hypothesis initially made by venture companies almost always will be wrong. Business plans that took 2 to 3 months will lose substance after a month or so. Therefore, how quickly you can modify your business plans is really important. In your project management schedule, you should clearly define plan revision tasks such as:

To periodically go over it every month

To go over risk triggers when they come up

Do’s & Don’ts for the Master Class Entrepreneurs

■　Detect how competent subordinates “goof off”

Competent employees are usually good at “goofing off” as well. Let me give you typical examples.

Mistakes and failures are not reported.
This is either they are perfect, or are simply not challenging.

Blame the plans
A case in which they blame the hypothesis at the planning stage as a reason why their measures or tasks are not going well. However, it is very common for venture companies to miss on their hypothesis. Many people who blame the plans usually are not really going through with their tasks.

Blame other people
A common case is “The task is behind schedule because the customer is not responding.” or “The customer is behind schedule, so the whole task is not making progress as well.” However, you must finish it in time even if your customers’ respenses are late or they take a lot of time for it.

There is no report about “yet to be done” or “would like to work on”
Reporters tend to report only about “how much they have done”. However, in order to grasp how far they have progressed in their projects, it is important to know “the things which haven’t be completed” and “how much more time is necessary”. Also, competent people are quite good at doing what they were told, but if they don’t consult with you about their original tasks, you can pretty much say that they are not challenging.

Experienced bosses know and see through these competent people when they goof off. They devote their time and make efforts to figure out how to make use of their subordinates’ competence.

Editor’s note: Next Big Things

I am reading Mr. Drucker’s “Next society” over and over and exchanging opinions with various people to think about what will be the Next Big Things(≒ businesses that will make the next era).

However small the changes may be, next “seeds” are already sprouting.
Applying technologies of seemingly unrelated industries create other new big industries.
Investments that are being made to environmental domains are really “bubbly”.

That’s it for today.

Contact