An effective purpose reflects the importance people attach to the project’s work – it taps their idealistic motivations – and gets at the deeper reasons for a project’s existence beyond just making money. Jim Collins and Jerry Poras, authors of the business classic Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies, provided a useful definition of ‘purpose’, which we can adapt as follows:Ī project’s purpose is its fundamental reason for being. Besides having a rationale, a project should be linked to a higher purpose. Two of the newer elements in the Project Canvas are purpose and passion. Experience shows, however, that business cases have biases and subjective assumptions, especially concerning the financial benefits from the project, which often get inflated in order to make the project seem more attractive to the decision-makers. It is a great exercise to learn about the alternatives and the project expected returns. Rationale and Business CaseĪll project management methodologies demand that projects always have a well-defined business case. The drivers are to obtain buy-in and resources (from the organization), to obtain attention and time from the executives, to obtain engagement from the members of the team, and to obtain support from the individuals impacted by the project. The Why dimension covers the triggers and actual meaning of a project (the rationale and business case, and the purpose and passion), which will become the drivers once the project gets underway. nance that will ensure the project is resourced and delivered. Each domain, or area of expertise, has a specific weight in the success of a project, which is indicated by a percentage. These are grouped into four major domains. It is composed of 14 dimensions – the ones that research has proven to influence and determine project success. It is a proven tool that will assist you in leading projects more successfully and in making your dreams a reality. The framework, which covers the basic principles and fundamentals of projects that everyone should know, is practical and easy to implement. The Project CanvasĪfter studying hundreds of successful and failed projects, I have developed a simple tool – the Project Canvas – that can be applied by any individual, team, organization, or country. The elements that matter most to executives – the rationale of the project, the business case, and the delivery of the benefits to the organization – are often not the primary aspects of existing project management methodologies ( note: there have been positive developments on this front with the new PMBoK v7 and Praxis, which I will cover in a future newsletter). Many project managers end up producing massive numbers of documents and swathes of paperwork, leading to an overall feeling that the role was primarily administrative. The pivotal assumption of the project management methods has been that documenting every aspect of a project in detail will provide a high level of control of the planned activities during the implementation of the project. In contrast, project management methods have tended to be too complex to be easily understood and applied by non-experts. These frameworks are some of the best known and most widely used in their domains thanks to the ability of their founders to simplify complex matters. Widely used management disciplines are often linked to a few simple frameworks that can be easily understood, and applied, not only by managers but also by the majority of individuals. The Boston Consulting Group (BCG)’s Growth-Share Product Portfolio matrix, developed by BCG founder Bruce Henderson, helps us to understand product mix in a simple manner. Porter’s Five Forces and value chain analysis help to make strategy a key area for every organization to apply. Urgent Need to Simplify existing Project Management Methods If individuals, leaders, and organizations focus on these elements and apply the techniques behind them, project success will almost be guaranteed. The Project Canvas is based on the premise that every project – regardless of the industry, the organization (profit or non-profit), the sector (public or private), or whether it is personal or professional – is composed of exactly the same elements, which determine whether the project is a success or failure. I thought to myself: if they can summarize all the key elements of a business model on one slide, why should we not have the same for a project? Both Alex and Yves have become good friends, and have advised me in the design of the Project Canvas. A couple of years ago, I developed the Project Canvas inspired by the Business Model Canvas, a one-page template, developed a little over a decade ago by Alex Osterwalder and Yves Pigneur, that today is used by millions of people around the globe.
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