Keep Projects on Track with the Natural Planning Model

We have all been on project teams that flounder. The brainstorming sessions seem vague and unfocused. The action plan doesn’t address the problem. Or nobody seems to really understand what’s going on in the first place. This is all a result of poor project planning.

When people think of project management they usually think of Gantt charts, pert charts, and MS project. These can be useful tools when used appropriately, but most projects don’t need them. Since most people know these tools aren’t needed for their project, and that is what they know of project management, they end up doing no planning at all.

David Allen describes the Natural Planning Model in his book Getting Things Done. I have had excellent success applying this model to all kinds of projects. The key is to follow each step in order, and to be constantly aware of where your project is within the model

The five steps are:

Define your Purpose and Principles

It is very important that everybody on the team knows exactly why the project is necessary. Revenues are short of budget and the team needs to figure out what to do about it; the defect rate on a particular product is too high; or the CEO is in town and we need to roll out the red carpet. If people on the team are not in agreement with what the purpose is from the start, then it is very difficult to keep people working toward the same thing

In team leadership training you are taught to establish ground rules in the first meeting. ‘Be Respectful’, ‘stay on topic’, and ‘start and stop on time’ are common ground rules, and can also be thought of as the principles of behavior the team agrees to work by. These are great, but you also need to establish more concrete principles as well. ‘Stay within budget’, ‘cut expenses without laying people off’, and ‘spare no expense to solve the problem’ are the sort of principles that need to be stated up front so that everyone understands the constraints the team is working under.

State the Goal

If you don’t know where you are going, you will never get there. It is not enough to understand the purpose of the project team. You also need to have a vision of project success. What will be the benefits? How will it feel to work with the new process? When will these goals be met? This is the opportunity to envision “wild success” and set aggressive goals. As David Allen says, “‘wouldn’t it be great if?’ is not a bad way to start thinking about a situation.”

Most formal problem solving and project management methodologies sum up the purpose and the goal in the project charter. The purpose might be called the business case or problem statement. The goal might be called the project objective

Brainstorming

After setting the goal for the team, it is now time to figure out how to get from here to there. There are dozens of ways of doing this. From very loose mind mapping and idea generating tools, to well structured problem-solving methodologies. No matter how you go about it, generate as many ideas as possible. This is not the time to evaluate or pre-judge, just get every idea on paper. The evaluating will come later.

“The best way to get a good idea is to get lots of ideas” – Linus Pauling

Organize

Now that we have all of these ideas, we need to organize them. Separate the good ideas from the bad (based on whether or not they will get us closer to out goal). This is where data collection and statistical analysis come into the picture if this is a six-sigma project. Figure out what needs to be done first. Organize by department. The goal is to decide which of the ideas to actually do and organize them in a way that makes sense to get them done.

Next actions

The last stage is to answer the question “what can we do now to get the project moving.” Many projects get organized well only to sit in limbo because nobody takes any action. Defining what can be done right now, who does it, and when it will be done by goes a long way toward actually getting you action items completed. When it is time to move on these things do not leave any doubt as to who owns each piece and what the expectations are.

Traditional project management training focuses on organizing the action items. Complex projects may need complex project management tools. Most projects do not. Even when they do it is still necessary to define the purpose, principles, and goal and brainstorm all possible ideas. MS project does not do that.

Many projects get to this point and stall because the team members see little association between the action items and the purpose of them project. This is almost always because the purpose and/or the goal were not well defined. Following these steps well from the beginning is key to getting things done at the end.

Applying these five steps to every project you have will result in greater clarity of purpose and better results. If you wonder whether or not to use the Natural Planning Model with a particular project, ask yourself this: “will it take two or more steps to complete?” If the answer is yes, then you should take some time to think go through all five steps.