Tips For Creating A Successful Project Plan.

Google the above title you will get about 334,000,000 results.

Most of the results are based on professional project management planning.

Being a project manager is a professional title that takes years of schooling, practical exercise, and testing to achieve a certification of proficiency.

Now, this I understand because I chose project management as my minor when I was completing my MBA.

But the grand scope of project management is too complicated for what we need.

For our purposes, we will do what is called backward planning.

This is the method of planning that I was trained in, in the military and continue to use today.

It is very simple, and it does require judicious use of time management.

Backward planning requires the starting point with a result and a time and date that result will be accomplished.

 

It is quite possible that you to use backward planning in your daily life to accomplish certain tasks, goals, or missions. But you’re just not aware of what it’s called.

How could you apply backward planning in your daily life:

Let’s say you need to pick your children up at 3 o’clock from their friend’s house.

You need to pick up your groceries that were preordered, and the store is 15 minutes away from your children’s friend’s house.

You will need 10 minutes in the store, so you need to arrive there at 2:35 PM.

Before the store,  your meeting with a printer who is designing birthday invitations for you and it will take you a half-hour.

The printshop is 10 minutes away from the grocery store, you will need to arrive at the printshop at 1:50 PM.

The printshop is 20 minutes away from your house so you will need to leave home at 1:35 PM to pick your children up on time.

Breakdown:

Pick up Children 3:00 pm

Leave grocery store 2:45 PM

Arrive at grocery store 2:35 PM

Leave printer 2:25 PM

Arrive printer 1:55 PM

Leave home 1:35 PM

This is a simple hour and a half backward planning scenario.

When developing your emergency action plan to protect yourself your family and your loved ones I recommend that you do not take anymore than eight weeks.

The longer you choose to complete a project, the better the odds are that you will not finish it.

The secret to the backward planning process is that it starts with success or what the successful end of the project looks like and then creates a plan that moves from the successful conclusion “backward” to the present.

The general scenario is:

Identify your result and describe how you will know it is completed

Identify your starting point and how you will know what it is

Create a plan that will help you arrive efficiently at your goal

Check your progress as you go.

Adjust as needed.

Test your plan

For additional information:

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/using-us-armys-backwards-planning-process-your-goal-setting-sherrin/

https://communities.usaa.com/t5/Going-Civilian/The-Military-Backward-Planning-Process-Ensures-Project-Success/ba-p/103851

Till next time

 

 

 

“Be Safe”

P.S. I am considering a Backward Planning workshop.

Email me with questions to;’ info@eapworkshop.com

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.