It Was An Itsy Bitsy, Teeny Weeny……

Finding the right balance of documentation and methodology can be challenging on small projects. Here are some guidelines I use when managing smaller projects.

I have been managing small projects for some time now. Some of my project are really tiny, I’m talking about 8 hours of work max. Others can be 2 week or month-long projects. Some span several months, and then you get up into the 6 month and year plus undertakings.

As a student of project management, I have often struggled with finding the right level of planning and documentation for these various sizes of projects. Some things are obvious, as in I’m not going to go through a formal project plan and communication plan, etc. for an 8 hour project.

As a rough guideline, here is what I use:

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Motivational Theory in Project Management

I recently studied Frederick Hertzberg’s article on his motivational theory, in the Harvard Business Review. The title is “One More Time: How Do You Motivate Employees?” Read it here.

I’ve heard about the theory before of course, vaguely referred to as the hygiene/motivator theory and it usually managed to earn about 1 slide in a presentation flooded with motivational theories. I was excited to read the author’s article and understand the theory in more depth. There is a lot of value in it for project managers, and I’d like to share some of my notes and thoughts.
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SCRUM Concepts in Traditional PM

I wrote earlier about a potential method of using Critical Chain-stype “mini-buffers” within an element of a traditional project management approach. Now I would like to revisit multi-tasking and how having some experience with the Agile software development methodology called SCRUM has helped me formulate some guidelines. Some of these ideas come straight from Critical Chain too, and a myriad of other methodologies all pointing to the same conclusions.