FOCUS: Project management is all about FOCUS. But we all know that in small companies there is a natural tendency to be battered with distractions. Call it project management entropy.
Marketing and Sales will always have the next great idea, opportunity, partnership, … for which they want project managers and resources from projects to spend time supporting. And indeed, any company survives only by getting new business.
So what are the keys to productively supporting new business development while maintaining FOCUS? Certainly, there is no pat formula but here are some of the questions that can help triage the myriad of distractions that can undercut focus:
- Does this request fit with the company’s strategic direction? If not, is the opportunity so valuable that it warrants an update to the company’s strategy? An affirmative answer to the latter question should really prompt a separate corporate strategy session before project resources are consumed.
- What are the potential benefits of this opportunity to the business? Some very simple, high-level assessment of the value of the opportunity should be part of the process by which a decision is made to consume otherwise committed resources. It may be possible to create a simple check list that allows for a quick assessment. Questions aimed at assessing potential for new customers (site visitors), increased profitability, and lower costs … all can help with the quick assessment.
- What are the costs of committing resources to investigating the opportunity? What impacts on current deliverables are likely? What is the cost to the business of those impacts? Here too, quick, high-level assessments can help in the decision making process.
Overall, there must be a balance between business development and delivery of commitments for the existing business. Churn, context switching, and general loss of FOCUS are a sure way to fail on existing projects. Both failure to succeed with existing business and failure to ensure a flow of new business can undermine a business. Project management in a small company involves supporting the executive team by helping to keep the right balance.