Tag: Project Management

Sometimes when I write, I don’t have a solid end goal in mind. I am writing against the clock to get my content generated so that I can move on to the next thing. I really wanted to get an example plan made up so that I could show it in action, but I didn’t want to spend the time I needed to make the plan, craft a well written article and also get some other work done.

Maybe it would be better to hold off and write something more comprehensive. But, the way I am working now, I am looking for not letting perfect be the enemy of the good. So, today I have created the plan for my mantel project and I can talk about how I use it.

On Friday, I introduced the concept of work segments (or units as I have written above). Remember that those are the blocks of time that you have to complete a particular task, or tasks that have a natural ending. So, I have broken my tasks down to what I think I can accomplish on a given date (assuming no interruptions) with no more than four hours a day. If I treat each unit as a work day and my work days are Monday through Friday, then I would in theory be completed with this project on November 4.

I want to say a little more about planning. In my past, my experience and expectations as a project manager was to over plan (in my opinion). If you look at my plan carefully, you will see that there are still decisions to be made. That means that my end date could very well slip because I didn’t build any extra time for ordering bits, testing colors or making mistakes cutting parts. I am very close to margins on my whole lumber bill of material which means I may have to mill up more lumber to finish this project. The truth is, I should have done some of this planning before I started cutting and now I am hoping to make it work.

Wouldn’t then over planning play into my benefit? Well, maybe; the devil is in the details. In my opinion, the best plan is detailed enough to guide your work yet broad enough to have room for unanticipated elements or decisions that have yet to be made. I also feel like too much detail leads to rigidity causing too much time fiddling with the plan instead of working. I actually made this plan more detailed that I would normally to illustrate how the pieces should work together and the consequences of how one thing might effect the other.

If this project was a job, once my project roadmap is set, then I would just get started. I wouldn’t spend any more time adjusting mid-stream unless there is a change in scope for some reason like this changes from a mantel to a whole fireplace surround. Once the bid is confirmed, then there is nothing really to do except document the hours and cost against the plan. There is probably another article about dealing with change some time in the future. I don’t see it on this project, but if the opportunity arises, I will write about it then.

This plan is really for my me and my wife, this is her project and she is the customer. I do use this process but the main reason that I put it together is so that I have a way to communicate where I am at on the project, what is left to do, any expenses that may occur and when she can expect that I will be done. She does not get into the technical details of how things get done or what tool/technique should be used, but she does understand time. Each decision of the day potentially has a compromise on the schedule. It means that to get this finished, time has to be allocated in the shop in addition to my other business dealings and family life. I also have a much larger project, the farm table waiting for this to get done.

When it comes down to it, there is no real deadline for this project. But as I said on Friday, without deadlines things tend to slip and this might get put aside for months. If this were a job, I would want to add travel time to get materials, planning time, billing time and build more time into the schedule to account for unknown. That would then go into my estimate for my bid.

I am going to keep track of my hours for my own business purposes because I have largely done woodworking as a hobby, but I would like to have in my pocket the effort of a custom mantel. I would also mention that I have the material already so there is no cost there. All in all, this is probably a $2000 project for a paying customer.

If you are like me, then you then you tend to prioritize the things that you want to do over the things that you don’t want to do. Or maybe said a better way, I deprioritize the things that I don’t really want to do and find lots of reasons to not do them. This has lead to projects literally sitting around in the shop for years.

Sometimes, when these projects are personal you want to get away from rigidity, accountability and structure. It is OK not to proceed with a plan because that is part of the escapism or hobby aspect. Other times, even when the project is personal the shop space is used for business purposes and having partial built projects is going to be in the way.

Today, I am going to talk about building a project plan to get things accomplished in your life. These are the techniques that are working for me.

• Visualize the End State

This probably seems self explanatory, however you need to know what the end state looks like. What is this job going to create, look like, function or how is this going to benefit me? It helps to have an end in mind when starting a project. Without a definable benefit, I would question that there is value to this project.

For wood working projects, I like to sketch out what I think the end state is going to look like. This helps me select the right lumber I am going to need and keep track of the sequencing as I work through the sub steps.

• Be Realistic About Your Tools, Space, Skills and Available Time

For me, the biggest gotcha here was not looking at the overall time commitment and just starting on something without regard to how long a project was going to take or even whether this was a priority. I would suggest, look at your schedule and determine what available blocks of time do you have consistently. A 1000 hour project is a lot of nights and weekends.

The reason this step is important and in this order is that later, when you are determining your work segments, you are planning to make success within the time that is available. Let me try to be a little more clear. If you only have one hour a day available, your tasks need to broken down to the point that you can succeed within an hour every day.

• Create Work Segments That Fit Your Available Time

If you only have one hour a day to work on a project, then your planning needs to be to that level. Since I am probably largely going to work on this project as part of working time, I won’t have that short of constraint. I will use it as an example.

1. 4hrs – Rough Mill lumber 4x 6″x72″

or

1. 1hr – Find the rough boards in the lumber pile that will yield 6″x72″
2. 1hr – Rough cut four boards 6″x72″
3. 1hr – Joint the four rough cut boards
4. 1hr – Plane the four rough cut boards

• Create Your Own Deadlines Using Your Work Segments

You can add up all the job parts and put them on a calendar. That will essentially give you a project time line for completion. Just remember that life is here, I don’t live on an island. I don’t have the luxury of every weeknight and all weekend all the time. I suspect that most people don’t either, so don’t build that in to your plan.

Do also build some extra time into each task if possible to correct mistakes. Unless you are an expert (in which case you probably don’t need this help) you are going to have some things to correct. This is time that can be used to jump ahead in the plan if everything goes well.

I know that once I get things planned, I now want to meet or exceed my own deadlines. That is OK. The point of this whole exercise is to get things done and feel good about it.

• Socialize Your Plan for Personal Accountability

It is pretty easy to do all the previous steps and still not get things done. You have to be on edge a little bit about whether you are going to succeed to keep you engaged. A spouse pushing is a pretty big motivator, but a social media post or a friend could also work.

• Keep Track of Your Progress for Future Use

Maybe you just guessed at how long something would take and you were badly wrong. You would want to account for that next time. There is also a piece where experience and familiarity can speed things up so it is helpful to keep track of progress for better future estimating.

There you go, you have just project managed your first project. That is all there is to it. I have used this technique to get un-stuck on projects very successfully. It is also a similar mindset to building estimates for my business.