How should you manage this work?
Deciding whether something is a project is a judgement call.
Work can be delivered by an individual, a managed team, or through project delivery.
The line is not always clear
Over the past decade, I have been refining complexity assessment tools to help teams decide whether to treat work as business as usual or manage it as a project.
I found that a simple project-versus-non-project cut-off was not nuanced enough. Smaller internal changes can score low but still need project management.
Calling routine work a project creates unnecessary overhead. Assuming a large change is business as usual risks failure and burnout.
Knowing you have a project means you can have the right conversations with senior management about investment, time, people and support.
One quick action
Before you commit, take one important piece of work and ask:
- Could this work benefit from a project approach?
- How should we describe and manage it?
- Who needs the briefing before we decide?
Further reading
- Context: How do I know whether I have a project?
- What: Simple Rule 08: Keep on Top of Risks
- How: Use the quick guided readiness check
Greg
Use the free quick readiness check to identify the one thing to improve next.
Use the quick guided readiness check →
