Management

At Benchmark Business Group, we believe that business is three things: Strategy, Structure & Engagement of People. In well-designed businesses people are engaged to work through well-thought-out structures to achieve the strategy. When this isn't the case, where there is not clear strategy, or the structures are missing, it becomes difficult for owners and managers to productively engage people. Naturally, this leads to business management issues. 
 

This month we've discussed how to design the structures needed to make project management successful in small business. We've looked at defining the mindset, having a project plan, knowing where to start, and dealing with change. We want to end this month's spotlight with a focus on action. It's one thing to have a plan, but no plan is successful without action.

 

Our Thoughts: The ability to adapt to change within a project is vital to success. Regardless of how great your project plan is there will always be some factors that you cannot control. The good news is that you can always control your reaction to those factors. The sample mindset document we provided earlier addressed the need for a project manager to adapt a flexible point of view, but to truly be ready for change, you must also think about the structure of change.

"Where do I start?"
 

In planning a project, there's no one "place" to start as this is not a linear process. Instead, the project management process is a constant flow of information through the project plan. However, in most cases there are two important sections of the project plan that need to be completed early: the business requirements and milestones. If you haven't already, we recommend downloading our sample project plan and using it to follow along this week.