It's All About Deliverables

 

We all know that the point of any project is to produce a final deliverable that satisfies the customer, is delivered on time and is within budget. So, if it's a deliverable we're after, why not manage our projects with a focus on deliverables instead of activities or tasks? Focusing on deliverables at the main project level has several advantages.

The level of detail is manageable.
When you're working with activities, the level of granularity in large projects can overwhelm your ability to see what's important. For example, the project team for the start-up of a large, offshore plant had a master schedule that included 300 to 500 activities. It was difficult to identify the interdependencies within the project because of all the noise. By converting the activities into deliverables and then manually mapping the interdependencies of each deliverable, they discovered that raw materials had not been scheduled for delivery until six weeks after finished goods were supposed to be leaving the plant. Focusing on deliverables pulled the project up to a level of granularity they could manage, and after all, project management is all about making a project manageable. If it doesn't do that, what's the point?

Deliverables focus on results instead of process.
When you focus on activities, you're focused on the process (how something will get done) instead of the results (what will get …

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