No Matter How Small

  Decision Making   Governance   Leadership   ProjectsAtWork  

If you walk into the offices of many small businesses, you are likely to see notes sticking either on or in close proximity to the desks of the people employed there. Such “reminder notes” are usually serving as prompts and/or notifications for projects or other operational work on which they are working. In the case of small businesses, the project plan may be held in a file; sometimes, it may only exist in the mind of management. With the low-cost tools available today for small-scale project management, and the value of project management being increasingly recognized by many in the government and in corporate sectors, why do some small businesses choose not to take advantage of formal project management techniques and tools?

To understand why project management makes sense for even the smallest of businesses, let’s reflect on what is at the heart of project management — that is to say, a management process. If we ignore project management definitions for a moment and concentrate on what a process is, it’s “a series of actions, changes, or functions that bring about a result.” Applied to project management, this result is the outcome of temporary endeavors to develop a unique product, process or service.

All businesses (whether for profit or not-for-profit) are, or should be, focused on results. All businesses have projects. …

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