18 episodes

Are you unhappy with your current job or the life you are living? This situation leads to serious implications on your health, personal or professional relationships. When you are doing a job you don't like, you may feel like something is missing. There will be a tension building up inside you and it is only when you do what you love that tension will be released and you will be satisfied with the result of any project you undertake. So how to make the right choices and decisions relevant to your career, business or dream goal project and live a happier, more successful and healthier life?

ANYTHING IS A PROJECT Make the Right Choices and Decisions Annie Ka Wenu

    • Business

Are you unhappy with your current job or the life you are living? This situation leads to serious implications on your health, personal or professional relationships. When you are doing a job you don't like, you may feel like something is missing. There will be a tension building up inside you and it is only when you do what you love that tension will be released and you will be satisfied with the result of any project you undertake. So how to make the right choices and decisions relevant to your career, business or dream goal project and live a happier, more successful and healthier life?

    EPISODE # 18 WHAT ARE PROJECT'S LIFE CYCLE AND PROJECT PROCESS?

    EPISODE # 18 WHAT ARE PROJECT'S LIFE CYCLE AND PROJECT PROCESS?

    The understanding of the project's life cycle and the process is often confusing. When you want to conduct a project, it is paramount to know the difference between the project life cycle and process. A life cycle is a series of changes that something goes through during its life or duration. A process is a series of actions or activities performed to accomplish something.

    Therefore, the project goes through a series of changes during its duration. The project life cycle starts with: Preparation, Planning, Delivery, and Closure

    However, the project process goes through five phases of activities: Initiation, Planning, Execution, Monitoring and control, and Project closure

    Let us go through one by one!

    • 10 min
    EPISODE # 17 HOW TO MONITOR AND CONTROL YOUR PROJECT'S PERFORMANCE

    EPISODE # 17 HOW TO MONITOR AND CONTROL YOUR PROJECT'S PERFORMANCE

    We are all born to perform and successful performance is valued in many parts of our culture such as our work, education, and sport.

    According to the oxford dictionary, performance is the action of executing a task or performing a function. It is the action of doing and how you do it and evaluate how the task was accomplished or not accomplished in comparison with the target set beforehand.

    This performance needs to be monitored and control to ensure that the target, goals, and objectives were achieved. It is why project performance is evaluated to ensure that the outcome is developed according to the stated plan.

    Project monitoring and control involve monitoring the whole project life cycle and measuring the performances. This phase looks at the project's current state and correct areas that are falling off track and get them back on track.

    Its purpose is to check the overall state of the project to ensure that the project is on target compare to the plan or baseline; and the project outcome is developed according to the customer’s specified quality for acceptance at the end of the project. If the specified quality is not achieved, the customer may reject the project outcome.

    How to monitor and control the project?

    While the deliverable is developed, you need to:

    -      Assess first the project progress and performance to find out if the project is performing well or not.

    -      Compare the project’s actual status with the planned performance or baseline and draw the variances.

    Analyse the variances to find out why they happened. If the error or change is happening more often, go deep to uncover the root cause.

    -      Submit the change request for approval to correct the variances depending on which area the change needs to be done. It can be that the change is related to the scope so you need to control the scope or the change is related to the costs, schedule, risk, procurement, monitor the communication, and stakeholders’ engagement.

    -      Perform the change requests.

    -      Present the deliverable to the customer for acceptance.

    -      Close the project.

    • 10 min
    EPISODE # 16 HOW TO ENSURE THAT YOU REALISE YOUR PROJECT BENEFITS AT THE END OF YOUR PROJECT?

    EPISODE # 16 HOW TO ENSURE THAT YOU REALISE YOUR PROJECT BENEFITS AT THE END OF YOUR PROJECT?

    Why do projects exist? And why do you need to conduct your project using project management principles? The need for change is ever-increasing in the business environment and in people’s private and professional lives. Change happens because of the competitive business world and also the human need of wanting more out of life.

    People are involved in projects to solve problems or to take advantage of an opportunity in order to realise benefits at the end of the project. These benefits can be products, services, processes, or any other results. There are so many reasons why projects are needed. Whatever your reasons you need to ensure that your project's benefits are realised.

    Many projects continue to fail despite the criteria of a good project manager and many people are unhappy with their jobs, businesses, or life statuses. In order to ensure that your project is a success, you need to state first what are your project success criteria?

    The project success criteria are the standards that will determine how your project will be judged as successful at completion. Before, a project was considered to be successful if it is completed on time, within the stated budget, and according to the specified quality.

    Just imagine if your project is to build a website, the website is delivered on the stated date, within your budget, and according to the specified features, colours, and quality standards. After one year of that project completion, no one is visiting your site. Tell me, is your project successful?

    Time, cost, and quality were considered to be the success criteria before but in order for your project to be successful you need also to realise the personal, business, and end-user benefits, these are the reasons why you started the project in the first place.

    What are the benefits? When to list those benefits and how to proceed?

    The business benefits may be things such as retaining 90% of your existing customers or attract 100 new customers per year. Produce 1000 products a month. The benefits aligned to your vision, goals, and values if you are doing your own project, or they can be aligned to your business vision, goals, or strategy.

    The benefits are listed in the initiation phase normally in your business case if you have one. How to ensure that the benefits are realised at the end of the project? You will need to

    - List the benefits you want to get and how to measure them

    - Looking at your vision, goals, and strategy, ask yourself if your benefits are inline

    - Who will be responsible for realising the benefits

    - When the benefits will be realised? Is it short, medium, or long term realisation?

    - Track the benefits realisation.

    In summary, many people are not happy with their current jobs, businesses, or dream goal project and project continue to fail. Among those reasons is the lack of alignment and benefits realisation. In order to judge if your project has been successful you will not only judge on whether you complete your project on time, within the budget, and according to the required quality.

    You will also need to realise your personal, business, or end-users benefits. The benefits are listed earlier in the initiation phase and decide on who will be in charge of their realisation and when they will be realised.

    For more information visit us at www.lqic.co.uk

    • 10 min
    EPISODE #15 HOW TO GATHER YOUR CUSTOMER’S REQUIREMENTS

    EPISODE #15 HOW TO GATHER YOUR CUSTOMER’S REQUIREMENTS

    It is paramount to know clearly what you want to achieve in your project so that you produce your project’s outcome that meets the needs and expectations of your customers, end-users, or any other stakeholder who have an interest in your project or its outcome.

    Who is responsible for gathering these requirements?

    It is the customer who is in charge of gathering the requirements and the business analyst will refine them and he or she will be between the customer and the project team doing the work. The business analyst will collect the requirements from the customer and other stakeholders. He or she works closely with the project manager.

    A business analyst is a person who conducts research and analysis to help the business improve its processes and systems. His or her role is to gather, analyse, and document requirements. The knowledge of soft skills is crucial because the customer will not only bring a list of requirements but also problems or symptoms of problems that need to be solved. ...Listen

    • 11 min
    EPISODE # 14 HOW TO IDENTIFY AND MANAGE WHAT MAY GO WRONG IN YOUR BUSINESS OR PROJECT?

    EPISODE # 14 HOW TO IDENTIFY AND MANAGE WHAT MAY GO WRONG IN YOUR BUSINESS OR PROJECT?

    HOW TO IDENTIFY AND MANAGE WHAT MAY GO WRONG IN YOUR BUSINESS OR PROJECT?

    We live in a world characterised by uncertainty. Many events may occur preventing you to achieve your business goal. Your business may indeed suffer physical and financial losses. 

    It is why you need to manage risks to ensure that you prepare yourself on how to prevent them from happening and how to manage them efficiently. Most of the projects are conducted in the business environment and risks are unavoidable. They are essential elements of a business. They can be negative or positive and you need to manage them strategically.

    Why do you need to manage risks? You need to manage risks to protect your business from loss to property due to fire, liability for damages due to changes in laws or frauds and loss to earnings such as the death or illness of the owner or injury to a person. There are risks you can control and others you cannot control. For example, you cannot predict risks due to inflation and natural catastrophe.  

    All projects involve risks. There are many types of risks that can affect the project. The main ones are the schedule, budget and performance risks. For example, the project schedule can be overrun or the budget can be overspent. Therefore, you need to set up your threshold of how much risk is acceptable in your project.

    Who will manage risks? Business managers should be aware, responsible and accountable for risks. They can play the role of risk managers. What are the causes of business risks? The causes of business risks can be damages caused by storm, fire or flooding, employees strike, power failure etc. Another example is the price fluctuation that may disrupt the selling price, the cost and income forecast. You also have risks from other company’s competition, risk caused by the government change in policy, regulations, interest rate etc. And also damages to business property and risk arising from mismanagement of the business affair.

    • 13 min
    EPISODE # 13 YOUR SOFT SKILLS MATTER IN ANY ENVIRONMENT (2)

    EPISODE # 13 YOUR SOFT SKILLS MATTER IN ANY ENVIRONMENT (2)

    This episode is the continuation of SOFT SKILLS MATTER. As mentioned in my other episode, soft and hard skills are equally important. Soft skills are necessary to lead and manage people effectively and hard skills are technical and domain knowledge skills necessary to perform your tasks.. I will continue today with team management, change management, negotiation and influencing and decision making.

    Looking at Team management, A team is two or more people working together to achieve a common goal. There are different types of team namely functional, cross-functional, semi autonomous and virtual team. All these types of team were covered in one of my podcast. There is another type of team I didn’t mention is the project team

    A Project management team comprises of.


    The Project Board whose role is to direct. (members are Business executive,      senior users, senior suppliers)
    The project manager’s role is to manage the team.
    The team manager and team members’ role is to Deliver the project outcome.

    For a team to perform well, you need a mixture of personalities.

    - You need members who are thinking-oriented. They are thinkers, monitors/evaluators, specialists.

    -  People-oriented members are coordinators, team workers, resource investigators,

    - Action oriented members are shaper, implementers, completers.

    The next soft skill is the ability to manage change. Change management process start with:

    1. Recognizing the need for change and start the change process. If you are stubborn and you don’t start the change process your business can be out of business.

    Listen

    • 12 min

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