Page 48 - Warwickers Fresh Thinking v2014

GIVE EVERYONE A What if we treated everything we did as if it was a project? What if every employee in your organisation goals were projects to complete? It provides a simple shift in mindset and creates ownership of tasks. It can take an enormous amount of energy and focus on tasks to execute a project well. So somehow isn’t it good to just think instinctively that everything is a project. There are many ways to look at all that we do, but the project-centric view is potent. Everything in work, and many things in life, has a goal, a set of constraints, some design challenges, a schedule, a few dependencies, some key relationships, etc. And it’s hard to be good at managing, leading, teaching, creating, making or building just about anything if you have absolutely zero skills at project management. You know there needs to be a driving force and focus in your thinking, a constant source of social energy, a list or a table or maybe a spread sheet, that makes it easier to push small decisions forward, increasing the odds with every single effort that the results will be good. It is not about being really well organised but more about doing the thinking and having systems to drive you forward so you can be accountable for you commitments. When you get stuck, at work or in personal life matters, or see someone else who is blocked, say, out loud, everything is a project. If I’m blocked, what are my goals? What are my assets? What are my liabilities? How can I divide this big thing I’m stuck on into smaller pieces, one of which I might be able to tackle? And sometimes just realizing there is a simple easy way to re-frame anything into the form of a project is enough to get things moving again. 48