Even something as simple as driving to the shops can be converted into a project lifecycle:
Scope- What I am going to buy
Budget- I have £10 to spend
Timeliness- I need to be there and back within an hour to pick the kids up
Risks- The traffic could be bad, I might not get a parking space
When working with new project managers, I like to set a task, which is outside of their core area of knowledge, as I work in Financial Services, I use a simple construction task, of building a new shed.
In the project sponsor briefing, this gives the new project managers plenty of opportunity to ask the right questions to establish the scope, typical questions would include
- Size of shed
- Colour of shed
- Location of shed
- Any additional requirements (electrics etc)
The good part of the task is that there are no real constraints so it can be as simple or as complex as you want it to be.
From the scope the aspiring project managers, then put the plan together, again this is a fairly simple exercise and no one in the real world would try and put a shed up without buying the materials or digging the foundations, but these things can get missed when putting your plan together, which is an excellent discipline to encourage that everything is documented.
The other key learning from this exercise is that once you start to put a plan together it can rapidly change as you start to assess how all the components need to hang together.
The final part of the introduction, is to start to introduce the concept of risk, both documentation and mitigation, the biggest risk with this simple construction task is the weather, which can lead to some interesting mitigation ideas.
