How to stretch the creation of a project for a couple of years or the art of effective planning
This topic does not pretend to directly state that one or another project planning approach is better than another. I would like in the discussion to find out which approach is closer to the habrows, and which one, in their opinion, is optimal.
Due to the fact that in life every day there are more and more new tasks, projects, business - often there was a feeling of utter inner anxiety, perhaps even stress. The feeling that you do not have time to do anything, that you are doing what you had to realize yesterday. In general ... the feeling of complete obstruction.
In this regard, I decided to start my own Time Management. As I obviously had little knowledge in this area, I decided to read some books. The first book that came into my hands, or rather, hit my handheld — was “Getting Things Done” by David Allen. Literally the very first chapters of this book made me think about the topic of this post.
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Here is a small quote:
“Over the years of work on improving personal productivity, I have appreciated the importance of the bottom-up approach. According to the mind, the most correct way is to work “from the top down”, i.e. first, the determination of the perspective goals of the whole project, then the minor goals and, finally, the details of the implementation. The trouble is that most people are so mired in the routine that it is quite difficult for them to concentrate on something larger and more promising. So practice shows that the bottom-up approach is more efficient. ”
Over the years of my work in various organizations and with different people, I have felt the influence of these two approaches. We have to admit that the “top down” approach almost always gave a complete set of negative factors affecting the project.
If it is still not entirely clear what the difference is between these types of approaches to the organization of the workflow, I will explain with examples that I have encountered myself.
Example 1. “Brain, and what are we going to do tomorrow? As always, we will try to seize the World! ”
Very often, developers (generally speaking, people of any profession) face this very task: “take over the world”. And day by day, month after month, perhaps year after year, they are trying to do it ... Capture the World!
Of course, this is an abstract example, but it seems to me that it makes it clear that people often work on a project, when it is unclear what exactly needs to be done “here and now!”, How to break the project into parts, approaching its final implementation, what is the next step and, in general, what should be the result?
If you are faced with such a task, and you are not a telepath who can read the thoughts of customers, bosses, foresee all the unexpectedness of the situation, then you are in trouble. Especially if you face a clear and tight deadlines for implementation. Implementing this project on time is practically unrealistic.
You can even have a good idea of ​​what should happen in the end, but you don’t have almost a single detail of the project’s implementation, you’ll only have a perspective and not a single real task that you can do, and complete it in 1-2 business days. What happens then? You begin to do as you see fit. And so do all - and the gurus of the business, and novice specialists. As a result, you can develop flawlessly one or another stage of the project, but ... A boss, a customer, a client will come - and say that this is not at all (or partly not) what he wanted to see. What needs to be done like this is not at all the way you did. The results - a day or two (at best) of your work will go to the cat's tail, you sit down to redo this part of the project again, but you will never (most likely) do it with the same enthusiasm and as quickly as you did initially considerations. This is the psychology of most people. Of course, if you do not belong to those - this is a plus.
As a result, realizing so one part of the project after another, correcting everything time after time, the project may be delayed for a period of 2-3-4 times higher than originally delivered.
As you already understood, this was an example of a top-down approach.
Example 2. "Make a combine and harvest!"
You must admit that often all of us are faced with tasks of no less, and sometimes even greater difficulty than harvesting. And it is far from always clear what should be done and how exactly it should be done to realize it (the idea of ​​assembling a combine may never come or come too late - see Example 1).
When a person is faced with a clearly formulated, concrete, very real task (and, perhaps, it is even not quite clear why it needs to be implemented, but there is no doubt how to implement it), we get something like the following plan for the implementation of the entire project:
1. to make a clear and precise task â„–1;
2. to make a clear and precise task â„–2;
3. ———————————————–
4. to make a clear and precise task â„– i;
5. put together - a point.
The sixth stage is the stage of handing over the project to the authorities, the customer, the client - with the subtasks implemented completely according to their wishes and meeting all their requirements. As a rule, in exactly the set time frame, perhaps even with “over-fulfillment of the plan”.
This is an example of a bottom-up approach. Even in this approach, it is sometimes not very clear why to implement a specific task, but it is always clear how to implement it and how long it will take (plus or minus a small interval).
And after all these tasks and subtasks have been implemented, put together, it will become clear that the harvesting project has been implemented. Perhaps even “conquering the world” ... :)
Due to the fact that in life every day there are more and more new tasks, projects, business - often there was a feeling of utter inner anxiety, perhaps even stress. The feeling that you do not have time to do anything, that you are doing what you had to realize yesterday. In general ... the feeling of complete obstruction.
In this regard, I decided to start my own Time Management. As I obviously had little knowledge in this area, I decided to read some books. The first book that came into my hands, or rather, hit my handheld — was “Getting Things Done” by David Allen. Literally the very first chapters of this book made me think about the topic of this post.
')
Here is a small quote:
“Over the years of work on improving personal productivity, I have appreciated the importance of the bottom-up approach. According to the mind, the most correct way is to work “from the top down”, i.e. first, the determination of the perspective goals of the whole project, then the minor goals and, finally, the details of the implementation. The trouble is that most people are so mired in the routine that it is quite difficult for them to concentrate on something larger and more promising. So practice shows that the bottom-up approach is more efficient. ”
Over the years of my work in various organizations and with different people, I have felt the influence of these two approaches. We have to admit that the “top down” approach almost always gave a complete set of negative factors affecting the project.
If it is still not entirely clear what the difference is between these types of approaches to the organization of the workflow, I will explain with examples that I have encountered myself.
Example 1. “Brain, and what are we going to do tomorrow? As always, we will try to seize the World! ”
Very often, developers (generally speaking, people of any profession) face this very task: “take over the world”. And day by day, month after month, perhaps year after year, they are trying to do it ... Capture the World!
Of course, this is an abstract example, but it seems to me that it makes it clear that people often work on a project, when it is unclear what exactly needs to be done “here and now!”, How to break the project into parts, approaching its final implementation, what is the next step and, in general, what should be the result?
If you are faced with such a task, and you are not a telepath who can read the thoughts of customers, bosses, foresee all the unexpectedness of the situation, then you are in trouble. Especially if you face a clear and tight deadlines for implementation. Implementing this project on time is practically unrealistic.
You can even have a good idea of ​​what should happen in the end, but you don’t have almost a single detail of the project’s implementation, you’ll only have a perspective and not a single real task that you can do, and complete it in 1-2 business days. What happens then? You begin to do as you see fit. And so do all - and the gurus of the business, and novice specialists. As a result, you can develop flawlessly one or another stage of the project, but ... A boss, a customer, a client will come - and say that this is not at all (or partly not) what he wanted to see. What needs to be done like this is not at all the way you did. The results - a day or two (at best) of your work will go to the cat's tail, you sit down to redo this part of the project again, but you will never (most likely) do it with the same enthusiasm and as quickly as you did initially considerations. This is the psychology of most people. Of course, if you do not belong to those - this is a plus.
As a result, realizing so one part of the project after another, correcting everything time after time, the project may be delayed for a period of 2-3-4 times higher than originally delivered.
As you already understood, this was an example of a top-down approach.
Example 2. "Make a combine and harvest!"
You must admit that often all of us are faced with tasks of no less, and sometimes even greater difficulty than harvesting. And it is far from always clear what should be done and how exactly it should be done to realize it (the idea of ​​assembling a combine may never come or come too late - see Example 1).
When a person is faced with a clearly formulated, concrete, very real task (and, perhaps, it is even not quite clear why it needs to be implemented, but there is no doubt how to implement it), we get something like the following plan for the implementation of the entire project:
1. to make a clear and precise task â„–1;
2. to make a clear and precise task â„–2;
3. ———————————————–
4. to make a clear and precise task â„– i;
5. put together - a point.
The sixth stage is the stage of handing over the project to the authorities, the customer, the client - with the subtasks implemented completely according to their wishes and meeting all their requirements. As a rule, in exactly the set time frame, perhaps even with “over-fulfillment of the plan”.
This is an example of a bottom-up approach. Even in this approach, it is sometimes not very clear why to implement a specific task, but it is always clear how to implement it and how long it will take (plus or minus a small interval).
And after all these tasks and subtasks have been implemented, put together, it will become clear that the harvesting project has been implemented. Perhaps even “conquering the world” ... :)
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/22598/
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