The People, Process, & Progress Podcast - What Makes a Project? | FF54

Episode Date: March 11, 2022

On this Foundations Friday 54 I share four key definitions from the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK) and practical considerations that can help Program and Project Managers determine whether they are still in project mode or supporting operational task completion.

It's time to lace up, chalk up, get logged in, and get locked on as we put people first, share our processes, and help each other make progress on the People, Process, Progress Podcast with Kevin Pinnell. Everybody, welcome to Foundations Friday, Episode 54, What Makes a Project? Let's Count the Ways. Welcome back to the People, Process, Progress Podcast. I'm your host, Kevin Pinnell, clean shaven as it's getting a little warmer. So I thought about for this Quick Hit Foundations Friday, what are some key indicators that your project is still a project, maybe isn't a project, or should transition to a program? So for this,

I'm using the Project Management Body of Knowledge 5th Edition. So the one edition previous to the six that's out there, but pretty straightforward definition of this one. The first thing for any project is that it should be unique. It should be something that we're new putting in place, a new process, a new system, a new widget, a new piece of equipment, a new apparatus if you're in public safety, those kind of things, but it's unique. It's something that someone identified somewhere, they put it in, it was approved for that intake process like we've talked about on previous episodes, and now we're doing it. The second thing is it's temporary, right? Projects should have a pretty defined as much as possible, and we've talked about the difference between, you know, waterfall, it's got to be perfect up front versus life

happens and there's changes and we're agile, but at some point, the project period should stop. There should be a beginning and end to it, and if the project keeps going and going and going which i'm sure some of you have seen and been part of if you're a program or project manager out of there is it then time to consider is this a program is this something we need to stop it leads us into our third thing which is uh does it drive change have we driven change or are we still just doing kind of tactical like um tasks and things as part of or are we still just doing kind of tactical like tasks and things as part of the project we're just still working through, we're actually kind of operational and part of our uniqueness and the temporary nature of a project is we should finish the project tasks, meet those objectives, those smart objectives, right? Foundation two of the foundational five of leaders intent, objectives, organization, resources, communication.

And so this driving change, you know, one thing is that I've talked about too here previously is project management is not change management, right? And project management and even programs that are managing multiple projects, we're making sure that the work gets done. We have, we address the constraints, the risks, the issues, those kinds of things with change management, we're addressing the adoption of things, the acceptance of things, the training we've given on things, that pro-sci, ad-car model that I've talked about here before. And we should be driving change, right? We shouldn't just be doing operational break-fix things. We shouldn't just be doing day-to-day work as part of a project.

And I've heard some projects be called projects, but they're really not. They're really doing day-to-day work or work of a business unit or something like that. So that's something if you're the lead of a PMO, you're a project manager and you feel like your project's in that area or getting to that point or at that point or has been in that point for a while, maybe give that feedback to your director, your PMO director or other leadership and say, hey, I think we need to transition this because I'm really doing work that I think we can successfully hand off to our teammates that they can take on. And the last thing is it should enable business value creation, right? So did this project

make our staff more efficient? Is this system costing less money because it's newer and it requires less maintenance? So many different things, stock options, there's so many things that are in the book there, but just think about it. Are we providing value? And some of it's tangible, like money. Some of it is time saving. Some of it is efficiency. Some of it is safety, those kind of things. So just think about what makes a project. As you count the ways, think that it's unique, it's temporary, it should drive change, and it should enable business value. Thanks so much for providing value by listening to the People Process Progress podcast, watching this video as I start adding things to YouTube.

And check us out at peopleprocessprogress.com. Share this with others if you think my message and the message of the guests that have been on the show have been helpful. Thanks for taking the time. Stay safe out there. Wash those hands. Godspeed.