A classic time management trick: eating an entire elephant is an impossible task. But if you eat one steak a day, it becomes doable. This is the basic principle of organizational decomposition of the project.
The advantage of this approach is that after breaking indonesia email database down the goal into smaller components, the manager gets an idea of the upcoming labor costs, the expected time frame for the project, and the resulting cost. He will be able to explain to the customer how long the work will take and how much money will be needed to complete it. By breaking down the entire volume into separate parts, the manager:
notes the key stages of project implementation and the intermediate results at each of them;
determines how many employees will be involved in the work, appoints those responsible for individual areas in order to subsequently establish communication;
provides for additional costs necessary to perform the work, such as purchasing software;
sets priorities by identifying top-priority tasks;
predicts potential problems and prevents their occurrence.
In other words, the essence of project decomposition is to draw up a schematic plan according to which specific tasks leading to the achievement of the main goal will be carried out sequentially or in parallel. Adjustments may be made in the process of work, but the structure remains unchanged.
Project decomposition stages
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Small tasks are combined into blocks in several ways:
By life cycle stages . This method is used more often than others and is optimal for implementing standard projects. Let's say a team has to develop a website for a large company. The entire set of tasks is divided into preliminary analysis and definition of requirements, creation of prototypes, writing technical specifications, design, development and testing.
By task blocks . The method is suitable for implementing large-scale projects that include several different areas. For example, a new service is about to be launched. In addition to creating the product itself, it is necessary to develop a tutorial and propose a marketing promotion plan. These tasks can be solved in parallel so that the service is fully ready by the specified deadline.
By responsible persons . Small projects are best implemented by distributing responsibilities between individual performers and setting a block of tasks and subtasks for each.
By deadlines . For some projects, deadlines come first. For example, there are tasks that need to be completed first, by a certain date. They are the ones that get the most attention, and then they move on to the next module.
By department . For long-term projects, grouping by different divisions of the company involved in business processes is preferable - sales, marketing, developers, designers.
If desired, you can develop your own project decomposition structure based on its specifics. The main thing is to adhere to a single principle, without mixing different methods of task grouping.
Project decomposition stages
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The project manager can do the decomposition independently or with the involvement of other employees, if the complexity and content of the project require it. Personal work on breaking down the goal into individual elements occurs as follows:
Defining the task and formulating clear measurable project goals.
Establishing the results necessary to achieve the goals. For example, to launch an online store, you will need to formulate a technical task, select a CMS, develop a layout, lay out pages, connect modules, and check the platform's functionality.
Selection of main blocks depending on the set goals and method of grouping. Definition of the final result for each module.
Formulation of specific, highly detailed tasks in each block, setting deadlines for their completion and implementation of the project as a whole.
Distribution of tasks among team members, involvement of third-party performers if necessary.
Determining the budget taking into account the cost of each employee’s work and additional costs for project implementation.
Establishing control points - moments of completion of work on a separate block or direction. Coordination of achieved intermediate results with the customer.
When team members are involved in the decomposition of project goals, the manager tells them the main message and the main tasks, after which he receives information from them about specific actions that will help achieve the set goal. This information forms the basis of a schematic plan that serves as a guideline for the implementation of the project.
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