Is my company too small for project management?

You may be thinking that your company is too small for BIG project management techniques, but that is not the case. Don’t let all the fancy terms like network diagram, Gantt chart, and work breakdown structure scare you away. And don’t worry if you don’t know how to use Microsoft Project or Primavera or any other PM software application out there… you don’t need it.

Project management is all about organizing your data for a specific project and updating it as the project progresses. You can use a Word document or an Excel spreadsheet if you want, as long as you have something documented for your project, you are contributing to the success of that project.

Let’s review the definition of a project… a project has a start and finish date with defined resources. So if you have a project that needs to start tomorrow and finish next Friday with a fixed budget of $1000 and 2 contractors working on it… You have a project! And you can manage it effectively by starting with pen and paper. Still not convinced? Ok, let’s go over how we can achieve this…

First, you need to determine how many business days you have to complete the project, minus holidays, weekends (unless you’re a workaholic like me), and scheduled vacations. So get out your calendars and start counting. Then write down that number for future use.

Now to break down the tasks. You can easily create a work breakdown structure because it is nothing more than a highly glorified detailed outline. Level 0 is the main goal of the project, level 1 is the first task, then you can add subtasks below it and move on to adding your next level(s). For example, here is a sample WBS for making French toast. *my personal favourite* 

Level 0 Make French Toast

Level 1 Gather ingredients (or materials)

(It’s okay to list ingredients below the level) ie spatula, skillet, eggs, bread, cinnamon, etc.

Level 2 Preparations

preheat pan

Add butter to the pan

Beat the egg in a bowl with cinnamon.

Level 3 cook

Dip bread into egg mixture on both sides.

Add bread to the pan

Flip when one side is brown

Remove when the other side is brown.

Level 4 cleaning

Wash pan and spatula

Rinse the dishes and put them in the dishwasher.

Save the ingredients

clean table

I opted not to include the Eating task, even though it was tempting. 😉

So now you have your tasks broken down into levels with subtasks, now you just assign them. Next to each task put the name of a person, one of your resources. Then ask them to estimate how many hours, days, or even minutes it will take them to complete each task. Always involve your staff in this process.

Now you are ready to do some basic calculations. Add up the hours (or whatever unit of measure you used) for each resource and multiply it by your pay rate and voila! You have an excellent start-up cost analysis for your project.

The next step would be to add the cost of materials, expenses, and so on, and add it to your initial cost analysis numbers and subtract it from your total budget. Are you under or over budget? If you’re low, good for YOU! If you’re done, you should go back to your outline and see where you can cut down on time for some of the tasks, or maybe skimp a bit on cheaper materials. Or better yet, what tasks can be done simultaneously! Your absolute last resort is to reduce pay rates. You need your resources to be happy and productive. 😀

Once you have the numbers you want, take all this information and plug it into a Word document with a table or bulleted list, or Excel with rows and columns.

Here are some tips:

o Use cells in a table or cells in a spreadsheet to plot by day, week, or task

o Use Excel Sum button to total columns and rows with 1 click

o Highlight or shade in color critical tasks that need to be completed on time

Keeping it simple is the key for small businesses like me, but trust me, you are using the basics of project management and you CAN be successful with it.