Project Management For Procrastinators

The task falls to one suited in procrastination to manage or deliver a sizable project. Yet the monumental weight of the exercise has just started to descend and a thread of silvery panic enters the bloodstream…. But not to worry. There is help. Project management presents challenges and solutions in every industry, for every goal and critical path.

So much of corporate resources, contractor contributions, employee effort and managerial attention in recent decades has been focused on project management it has espoused its own science and literary canon. Project management can mean a factory shutdown plan inception, a start-up business scenario research mission, or simple delivery of an interface walk-through or product manual.

Project management has involved entire cadres of software development companies and beta test project teams. Project management science has in fact been sponsored by…project management. The benefit of these advances is that many solutions to common project management challenges can be encompassed in certain software or organizational approaches. But for the true procrastinator, certain shortcuts in project management need apply.

Evaluate Project Resource Strengths and Weaknesses

After identifying the main milestones for the project from start to finish, evaluate which parts of the project will be easy and which will be challenging. Often a company will have inside resources or facilities to be made available on a project basis. Allocations toward a department budget or annual cost center may be forthcoming. Request from the human resources department or appropriate manager additional project staff and head count resources.

Can resources and personnel be reworked to make a better fit? Can cost friendly resources be aggregated to allow more talented personnel to contribute in key areas where most needed? What resources can be tapped without additional cost? What time envelopes will expire around the critical path model such as paired technical staff with software licenses and data access? Project team strengths and weaknesses can be utilized for efficient project management completion.

Tap Experienced Personnel

Many corporate personnel are looking to flesh out their job descriptions and add to their company profile. In lean times, employees who can make an extra contribution will be valued. Give these employees a chance to get the spadework done on your project. Make sure you can get accuracy and quality workflow from them. Borrowed headcount can spearhead the launch of a project with minimal effort if the players are all on the same page.

Experienced personnel will have project experience on their resumes. These are not the worker drones who stick to their job description and do nothing further. Look for talented personnel who are not being fully utilized in their current positions. These employees will jump at the chance to be part of something and contribute rare energy to a new project.
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Promote Benefits of Project Participation

Often a role in a new project team is downgraded to a “worker bee” mentality. But inclusion in large corporate projects is what shapes a career. Enthusiastic participants can be given minor roles requiring painstaking attention to simple tasks. Many more qualified employees simply are unwilling to take on these junior roles.

Careers in large corporations are built on networking. Working on a project focused on a finite critical path with a delimited goal gives experienced and talented staff a chance to interface with one another in a nonsocial setting. Grooming new contacts, seeing what other project teams are doing, and bringing valuable project experience and collaboratory skills makes finding these birds worthwhile.

Critical Path Planning

Procrastinators in project management should be ready to adapt past project management plans or have a skilled junior administrator do this for them. By executing an efficient (and proven) project plan, the analysis phase is measurably shortened. Request project plans from other managers (or their junior staff) who have managed such project before. If possible, tap former project members for an evaluation copy. Edit the evaluation copy down to the watermark and executive summary.

Mentors

Large corporations, urban areas, and metropolitan business organizations by industry and zip code have available peer counseling and mentor programs. Tap this business acumen by discussing your personal challenges regarding the project management goals. It’s possible any worthy peer mentor will have a few solutions or cluster of seasoned project manager suggestions to smooth your path. Find out through the grapevine who mentored and monitored other key projects to completion. Key contacts to get hidden resources could be the “missing link” resource your project needs.

Negotiating deadlines

Procrastinators who know their own weaknesses are likely to be well known for these characteristics as well. Many project deadlines are falsely padded time-wise to give an inexperienced project manager room to grow without sacrificing the company mission or imperiling other departments. As long as project quality is good and data delivery will concretely occur, negotiating a weekend “cushion” for review and fact checking may be possible.

Qualify as much language as possible in the project delivery terms with data-dependent successive deadlines. If data access for your staff is glitched up by one day, and senior customer management reshape the critical path goals by one key clause, there should be resulting time added into the project completion agreement. Those extra few days might be time to catch something else going wrong. If errors are found in the completed project, management may wonder why you didn’t request more time.

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