wordsofwonder said:
Can you clarify how the distinction between projects and sub-projects works for you? I've tried to make this distinction in my own GTD system before, and have ended up refactoring the hierarchical bits out because I got too bogged down in managing the layers of projects and sub-projects to get any work done.
For me, I tend to view a project as something that satisfies the following criteria:
- Has a definable goal and outcome.
- Requires more than one NA to complete.
- Relates in some way to my short- or long-term goals, areas of responsibility, values or life.
Tammy,
You are correct to point out that the exact specifications of a subproject are notoriously difficult to pin down, as David Allen himself recognizes. The problem is much deeper than defining a project; the very notion of an action is relative to the agent's history, mental state, environment and dispositions. If you are in a new situation, "Server backed up" might be a project. The fine-grained actions might be Turn on monitor, Click on history tab, Verify prior night's backup is complete, etc.
After you've been backing up the server for a period of time, it no longer is a project. Now all of the fine-grained steps are viewed by you as a single physical action. Now your trusted system only has the NA "Back up server."
Any project can be broken down into infinitesimally small components. As we tell each other ad nauseum, we break things down as much as we need to but no more. We very quickly learn that we don't want to spend all our time cultivating our project plans. The goal is to get things done.
I applaud your quest for clarity regarding subprojects. I would claim that the use of subprojects is just like the use of projects. It is dependent on your psychological state. If I am at a new job, "Bank statement reconciled" might be a project, with many subordinate NAs. This is because the reconciliation of the bank statement induces, panic, fear, and feelings of being overwhelmed within me. I recognize these emotional feelings and respond rationally by breaking the project up into smaller bits.
If I have an outcome that will require many days or weeks to accomplish, I might decide that I can deal with it better psychologically by breaking it down into component parts. Most of these components might best be described as outcomes themselves, not actions. So I end up with a project plan that is either a multilevel outline or a mindmap. (For examples of both, see the GTD book.) I would then have a project with a number of subprojects. For each subproject I would define a NA.
If my project were "Draft 1 of Novell AAA written," I would need to engage in some introspection. Is this hard to swallow emotionally? Do I have thoughts of doubt and inadequacy? If I don't, it's time to dive in and and start writing. If I do feel at all overwhelmed, I might decide to create subordinate projects. Perhaps:
One-paragraph summary written for each main character.
One-page summary of narrative written.
Atlantic slave trade researched.
The first subproject might have the following outcomes:
Character summary of Smith written.
Character summary of Jones written.
Character summary of Morgan written.
The next action for the Smith subproject might be:
Review my journal entries from my trip to Arkansas last spring.
For another discussion of this practice, I copy a post by andersons:
subprojects in practice
Originally Posted by egg
THE BIG QUESTION!!!!: how do I get this into the GTD(outlook) system. Whats a project? What's a task?!
Is (Run "BIG Computer Project") a project? Or is it (run "Product ABC") or ("BIG Computer Project UK")??
First point -- outcomes and actions. With the GTD paradigm, express as much as possible in terms of successful outcomes and actions to achieve them. For "Run Big Computer Project," what is the successful outcome? For "Run Product ABC," what is the successful outcome?
Here you really have 9 projects that are part of a grand Project. For purposes of GTD, you can factor out the grand Project. Then you have
Product ABC is delivered in UK
Product ABC is delivered in France
Product ABC is delivered in Spain
Product XYZ is delivered in UK
Product XYZ is delivered in France
Product XYZ is delivered in Spain
Product 123 is delivered in UK
Product 123 is delivered in France
Product 123 is delivered in Spain
To organize these better conceptually, you could certainly group them EITHER by country OR by product and have a perfect outline. However, from the viewpoint of outcomes and actions, it looks like you have 9 separate projects to organize.
Second point - more than 2 levels for complex projects. Yes, you can have more than 2 levels in your project planning. Even if everything possible is expressed in terms of actions and outcomes, you are still going to have 9 complex projects with several levels of hierarchy (i.e., subprojects) before you see actions emerge. GTD mostly addresses the simple projects with 2 levels - project and action - that capture much of what we want to do in our lives - maybe 75%, maybe 90%.
However, there are more complex projects that need to be outlined, and GTD recognizes that. It's perfectly fine to expand the hierarchy of project planning in GTD. Chapter 10 of GTD talks a little bit about outlining more complex projects. The example there shows 4 levels deep for moving to a new office location.
With your 9 projects, break the first one down into subprojects, subsubprojects, etc. Try to have the subprojects be outcomes, not ideas, as much as possible. If you keep breaking subprojects down, you should have at the lowest level actions you can do to accomplish the subproject which will help accomplish the project. Actions should be things you know how to do in one sitting.
After you have planned and organized one project, you might be able to come up with a master project template, or at least a template for each product, so that you do many of the same actions for each product project. Then you can add the actions that are custom to each country as they arise.
Quote:
Originally Posted by egg
It's a shame that I can't have the same kind of hierarchy in the GTD project/task list.. there's only one level, from what I can see.
Please help! I'm going mad!
Third point - choose the tool that can handle your data. Right now you are trying track actions in Word, and project structure in Outlook. These products were really designed for the opposite use: you could outline the multiple levels of the project structure in Word, then track the lowest-level actions in Outlook.
Outlook is not designed to represent hierarchical projects. It was designed to track tasks and relate them to other data, files and emails. Outlook can be rigged to represent 2 levels - projects and actions (by configuring according to the whitepaper, using the custom project form from the Gear forum, or an add-in). The most recent add-in for Outlook rigs it to support 3 levels - project, subproject, and action. But all in all, Outlook has relational structure and operations that have to be jury-rigged to act like a hierarchy. You will need to configure it or add something in to capture 2 or 3 levels. So it's perfectly understandable that you are going mad trying.
Personally, I don't like the additional work and headache of rigging software to deal with data structure it was not designed for. Trying to represent hierarchical data with a relational tool is a pain. Trying to represent relational data with a hierarchical tool is a pain.
So you have 2 options here. You can abandon Outlook altogether in favor of software that fits your hierarchical project and action data.
Or, you can plan the outline of your projects and subprojects outside of Outlook, in some other outlining tool, such as Word. There are better tools than Word if you need them. This project planning should produce an outline with levels of subprojects that finally lead to actions you can do. Then use Outlook to track the actions. Or configure it to track the 2 lowest levels -- the lowest level of subproject and their actions (e.g., with the whitepaper, the custom project form on the Gear forum, or an add-in).
So ultimately, you'll have a project outline in Word or some other outlining tool:
Product A is delivered in UK [project]
--> Product A bugs are fixed [subproject]
----> Product A has been beta-tested [subsubproject]
------> Release Product A beta [subsubsubproject]
--------> Check with Product A UK manager about beta release status [next action]
Then track all the next actions in Outlook. You could maybe track the next action along with its immediate parent subsubsubproject.
Obviously, I don't know much about delivering software products, so my example is likely stupid, but you get the point. And I do know that the steps of releasing software products are standardized to a point; there exists software specifically to track and automate the process because it is complex.
Finally, see this thread for more ideas, particularly about MindManager/ResultsManager:
http://www.davidco.com/forum/showthread.php?t=4552
