Every day we listen more and more to how it is necessary to start working on a project, but nobody
knows exactly what that means. Most people are convinced that these are projects, just calls for
proposals, where you apply with an idea. What we really do. We can look at everything about the
project, including how you work.
What exactly is a project?
A project is a one-off action that has a clear goal and at the same time clearly outlines the path you need to take, when it starts, which path you need to take, when and where you will reach the goal.
Is not that the way to work?
Imagine that in the morning you are sitting in a car or on a bicycle, totally confused, and you are just starting to drive, and then you pass a bar where you see a friend and have a coffee with him, and when you get hungry you remember that he is close to home, a mutual acquaintance, and that he always has
something in the fridge, and then all three of you go to the shop to drink a dozen beers; and you sit by the river and reminisce about your youth… and you never came to work!
Now, one day a year you can afford the excuse that you are sick, but what if every day was like this and all people were like this… you’d be living in total chaos. Although, most of us have that feeling, and then we create a virtual order and float between these four walls, and we make it feel like we are in a regular job … and the result of that day is worse than spending the whole day with friends.
I have not started writing, I just want to show how we live in an empty space and set ourselves task after task and such tasks without a clear – ultimate goal, just to be distracted because we do not know what we really need to do. That is why some people go to the extreme and organize their private life in a project or, in other words, plan their life to the second. When they say that project work is needed at every turn, even in their private lives. Because only by taking the military route can we remain organized. We human beings have the feeling that we are always getting out of balance and going from one extreme to the other. The result at the weekend is fatigue and very little real reward.
When I write this article, I am constantly referring to human qualities and nature, but we must be aware that it is our qualities that also create processes in the business environment. And if we have not built up a solid personality, we very quickly submit or surrender to the environment or, if the environment has no clear boundaries, we let our personality come alive in the business environment.
That is why we cannot say that companies are equal to each other, because every manager and every group of employees has different characteristics and from this a different process is created, regardless of the fact that companies have the same activity and the same product.
There was a time when companies resorted to the ISO standard, but it served more for marketing than for the actual organization of work. The ISO standard clearly defined the processes and rules to be followed, but did not interfere with people’s nature and habits. To those who introduced it, it seemed perfectly normal for employees to work as they accepted the instructions. Perhaps this really happened, and most thought that by following this standard they would also create order in their personal lives, but human nature is stronger than external factors. Therefore the standard ISO is just an inscription on the wall.
And the companies have once again found themselves in the chaos of a decade ago. The pressure on employees is even greater that more work is needed. And if we take the time actually used and compare it with the company’s income, we find that we are still wasting too much time in vain or, as electricians would say, paying for too much “wasted” energy.
So the best form in these times proved to be Project Office. A project office is not just an office where someone carries out projects, but a way of thinking, not one that keeps you trapped in your own thoughts and projects, but a way of thinking that begins to set you free and restore order in your life.
So what is the crucial point that makes one Project Office better than others? As I said at the beginning, it is a project with a clear beginning and end. So the way of thinking of a project teaches us to set clear goals, to have a beginning and an end.
Why is it important to get things done? If we do not finish the project, this thought – the thought – is spinning around in our head over and over again, and when it flies so “freely” through our subconscious, it creates psychological garbage, which is created more and more every day and kills our creativity or. the freedom and peace in our head. Therefore it is important to draw conclusions so that we can move forward.
The project has three phases: Preparation, implementation and conclusion.
All three phases take the same amount of time, although we are used to 95% of the implementation time. Here I am talking about the natural cycle, spring, summer, autumn and winter. The project preparation is like spring, Implementing Summer and Completing Autumn, and all three cycles are of equal length. Winter is a break, a resting place, because this is also an important part of the project
work. There must always be a pause between projects. Especially to rest our thoughts.
When setting up a project work method, the main thing is to eliminate as much empty space as possible from our thoughts and our lives, the “reactive energy”.
How do you set up a Project Office in a company?
Setting up a project office starts with the way of thinking. We have to treat the working day as a project. When we come to work in the morning, we first make an appointment with ourselves, set a goal for the day and define the way to get there as precisely as possible, so we make a daily plan that we try to follow, I am talking about writing down all the activities on your computer or on a piece of paper. Also determine under what conditions… e.g. we need peace, i.e. switch off all distractions (phone, Facebook, Skype). We try to stick to this plan as much as possible, and at the end of the working day we make another meeting with ourselves – we check if we have achieved all the tasks and goals set or not. At the same time, we start working on a plan for the next day, i.e. we make the same plan as you did this morning, so just check tomorrow morning to see what to expect. This means preparing for the day and also finishing it.
What do we do with it? By writing some things down, our mind no longer thinks of all the written information, but has the information that everything is collected in one place and it is no longer a matter of not forgetting something, but of developing new ideas or putting them down in writing. Order begins to establish itself in our mind. So we start doing business at work and no longer take it home with us. This is how we start to reduce negative stress by 30%.
It is basically a training, and we start to repeat this way of working, which takes 15 minutes a day, every day for the next three weeks.
After three weeks, we start planning for the whole week, setting daily targets in the weekly plan, because there is still a daily plan, and after the weekly plan, we move on to monthly planning, where only weekly targets are set, and then to annual planning, which in practice is called the annual plan.
So the way of thinking of the project is not something new, it is just a way of moving from one form of action to another, more orderly, and at the same time it does not allow us to return to the original chaos, because we are basically shaping our personality or. one could say we are becoming much more mature.
When we have mastered this way of thinking, we begin to introduce the same concept among the employees, or, in other words, let us begin with this concept of leadership. You will certainly say that you have weekly meetings anyway, but it is a system of meetings. Meetings should be divided into three levels.
The first part is intended to solve organizational problems, i.e. what bothers us in the company or hinders us in our daily work, such as communication, lack of materials, relationship with employees. When we finish the first part, we draw conclusions and also write them down. Maybe someone would say that such unimportant things are for the end; but we must be aware that just such things are like a stone in a shoe, there is no way we can relax to reach the final goal.
In the second part of the course, we will deal with development and marketing activities that are designed to direct our thoughts into the future and thus prepare the mind to overcome more easily the problems we will encounter in the last, third part of the course.
The third part is dedicated to projects. Here we review all phases, divide the tasks and solve the problems. By first freeing our minds from insignificant problems, we can now solve real projects that are our main concern and will allow us to survive.
Each sentence should not last longer than 15 minutes, i.e. 45 minutes in total. If a project needs to be worked on separately, only the team meets, so that everyone in the team can listen.
We do the course twice a week, we divide the tasks on Monday, we check the implementation on Thursday. On Friday we do not plan anything, but leave a day to realize things that are important for existence but not vital, and so we slowly prepare for the weekend.
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Of course you will ask yourself, but who works only four days today, because if you want to survive, you have to work 24 hours. That is not true!
It is necessary to put the human being, that is, oneself, in the foreground. We must not subordinate ourselves to business, because business is for us, not us for him. And we really must learn to enjoy ourselves more. And the project-oriented way of working and thinking teaches us exactly that.
To distinguish between private and business life and to be much more efficient in business.
Namely that there is too much empty space in business and private life. The above theory of colleges did indeed develop from the flowing of a river in nature. When the river flows, it is drinkable and clear, when it is dammed, it has a bad smell and taste. It is the same with the flow of information. If we do
not have the information we need to work or live smoothly, we begin to create an unrealistic picture, and this creates an empty space in our lives (This is a dynamic communication model, which is described in more detail in the book: “Between things and doing is all ocean” ).
So as soon as we have mastered this way of communicating with our employees, we start thinking in a project-oriented way. And only now can we start reorganizing or. setting up a Project Office. Because this is how we created the basis, and with the slowly changing habits, the environment was not even aware of it. Everything else is now just a technical set-up.
We see that everything happens in our heads, so we first have to create order in our heads so that the mess does not fall back on our environment.
Each Activity under the project must have a clear indication of what its purpose is and how it will affect the objective of the project, who is responsible for it and who will carry it out, how it relates to other contractors and tasks, the factors and tasks on which it depends, when it starts and when it must end. The financial factor is very important: the hourly rate of the person who will carry out the project, the price of the material and all other costs and profits.
Project management is an orderly way of working. It is clear who does what and what their responsibilities are. The individual is fully responsible for his work.
Setting up a project office is actually a process of reorganizing any organization. The process is similar whether the project work is introduced in a company or in a public institution, community and the like.
A time-consuming and expensive process
The first step is to “clean up” and edit, which includes an analysis of the work process to show us the time constraints. We first have to start with ourselves, create order and set up an organized approach according to common guidelines.
Setting up a project office in a fixed environment is a time-consuming and expensive process. That is why we have to tackle the reorganization step by step. First, a so-called project management office, sometimes known as an investment management service, must be set up. Here, projects are prepared with the relevant departments and then implemented. In this case, the project office has the role of a supervisor and assistant.
Gradually, the way the project works is moving from large investments to regular work. This organizational form of the system is suitable for large companies and state and municipal administration. For small companies or those in the process of being established, it is advisable to reorganize the project at a certain point in time or to start project work as soon as they enter the market.
Far beyond Scandinavia and Japan
The success of a project-organized company also depends on external factors. In practice, however, it can quickly collapse here. After all, the state should also create the conditions for project operation: Change laws, accelerate administrative processes and simplify administrative procedures. As reality is
still far from what we would like to see, we will certainly not find a company in Slovenia that would work entirely according to the rules of the project office.
However, this should not be an excuse for not introducing improvements. Nevertheless, such work can change a lot if we only mention the effective delegation of tasks, the assumption of responsibility and the rethinking of employees. In Europe the conditions for a project office are successfully created by the Scandinavian countries, in Asia by Japan.
The project plan must be very precise
Each Activity under the project must have a clear indication of what its purpose is and how it will affect the objective of the project, who is responsible for it and who will carry it out, how it relates to other contractors and tasks, the factors and tasks on which it depends, when it starts and when it must end. The financial factor is very important: the hourly rate of the person who will carry out the project, the
price of the material and all other costs and profits.
All these are data that we have to enter into the plan. It is best to make the plan in the form of a table and add a column for realization during the execution. This way we have a realistic picture of the project all the time and see where the deviation comes from. Let’s not forget to set milestones to review the subgoals and measures in case of deviation from the plan.
What is a project?
A project is a one-time undertaking, it is a series of tasks aimed at the same goal, it is limited in time with a known beginning and end.
For and against the project office
Advantages
Order and transparency of processes
Lower costs
Secure transactions
Simplify processes
Relief of the employees
Slabosti
Long introduction due to changes in thinking
Chaos if everyone does not follow the rules
Emotionally feel like we are running out of gas
Author of the article: Milan Krajnc, pedagogue, entrepreneur & crisis manager
I teach you to look “at yourself” as a third person. For more information or an introductory meeting, write to me at official@milankrajnc.com
He is the Author of the Dynamic Model of Business Management, based on natural laws. The ultimate goal of DMV is the operation of the company as a Project Office. You can order his books at:
An electronic version of the book can be ordered here.
Dynamic Leadership model
The purpose of the book is to present a dynamic leadership model, which in more than a hundred cases has proven to be a great way to get out of business and personal crisis and how to overcome difficulties without even going into crisis.