Project and NA: please check
- Thread starter Fritz58
- Start date
"Think" is not a physical action, so I would say no. Also, I don't think you should delegate the thinking about something this important; I think probably you should do it yourself. (Or delegate it upwards in the hierarchy, to your supervisor; or ask others for opinions then make the decision yourself. For example, send an email to all people involved asking them to send you comments, if they want, about whether or not to create the new division.) For thinking tasks: I think it's GTD to put an action, like "draw a mind-map to help with thinking about this" or "write a list of pros and cons" or even "go for a walk in order to think about this": those are physical actions. "Think" is a good thing to do but is not a NA in GTD as I understand it because it is not a physical action. Usually you do the thinking during processing, before writing NAs.
I would start by defining the wildly successful outcome of starting up a tech support division. A brainstorming session might be useful after that to define the scope of the project. Once you have done that, the next action will probably suggest itself to you. If not, you could fall back on "Draw up a shortlist of people to delegate the project to."
Not sure I agree . . .
I use a context called "thinking" and I think it's perfectly valid. While in its purest sense, it may not be a "physical action", for me it does presume that I'm in an environment where I can successfully concentrate. There are many, many physical environments in which that can take place (airline flights, driving, in my office, at home, etc) which allows this context to be much more permissive.
I don't think the OP intended to delegate the thinking; it seems as though HIS next action was to think about who to delegate the entire project to.
At that point, assuming that the OP expects to get periodic updates on the Project progress, those updates (not the project itself) become a "waiting for".
My $0.02
cwoodgold;101395 said:
I use a context called "thinking" and I think it's perfectly valid. While in its purest sense, it may not be a "physical action", for me it does presume that I'm in an environment where I can successfully concentrate. There are many, many physical environments in which that can take place (airline flights, driving, in my office, at home, etc) which allows this context to be much more permissive.
I don't think the OP intended to delegate the thinking; it seems as though HIS next action was to think about who to delegate the entire project to.
At that point, assuming that the OP expects to get periodic updates on the Project progress, those updates (not the project itself) become a "waiting for".
My $0.02
TesTeq
0
It depends on the size of the Project.
I think it depends on the size of the Project. One-person Project can be effectively delegated and managed using WaitingFor list only. But for bigger Projects you can use two approaches:
Fritz58;101393 said:
I think it depends on the size of the Project. One-person Project can be effectively delegated and managed using WaitingFor list only. But for bigger Projects you can use two approaches:
- Be a Project Manager and use some tool to control dependencies and schedules.
- Designate a Project Manager and use a WaitingFor and Agenda lists to manage information exchange with this person.
Suelin23
Simplicity on the far side of complexity
My next action would be to plan the project using the natural planning model. Once you've done that, you should have more definition about what the project is, what skills or personality attributes are required. This then will help with selecting the right person to manage the project.
johnaohman;101397 said:
Yes, it is, it's perfectly valid. I didn't mean to imply it wasn't. I'm only saying
I don't think it's GTD (according to what I remember reading in the books).
Maybe almost everyone who uses GTD uses something or other that isn't
strictly part of the GTD system.
I think the reason David Allen said not to put things like "think" on the next-actions
list is that I think most people get bogged down by things like that ... they treat
it as "stuff" and tend to skip that item and not want to look at their list.
For you, though, "think ..." apparently works well as an item on a next-action list
(if thinking can be called an action; not a physical action but still an action?)
so there' s no reason at all for you not to do it. In other words: you know what
to do when you see "think ..." on your list; you're able to handle that.
I don't put things like "decide ..." on my lists, because when I'm reviewing the
lists I'm not in the right frame of mind to do something like that.
So, I guess I usually force myself to make a decision at the time I'm writing the
list in the first place -- which is pretty much what David Allen intends, I think.
Although apparently not necessary in your case.
Yes, my mistake. I meant "evaluate", not "think": that is, I recommend not
delegating the work of evaluating (which is essentially a form of thinking).
Of course, I know extremely little about the whole situation, so my recommendation
may not be worth more than was paid for it. And, I'm not sure whether
Fritz58 meant delegating the evaluation (as he seems to me to be saying)
or something else.
I probably would have phrased it as "spend ten minutes writing down thoughts about who to delegate the project to", but that's effectively "think about" - it's just offering a more specific task description of what thinking about means to me.
Edited to add: And it makes it a "check-offable" task. There's no guarantee that I'll come to a decision after a "think about" session; I can assure myself that I will spend the ten minutes, and if I haven't made a decision, I'll just write another task.
Edited to add: And it makes it a "check-offable" task. There's no guarantee that I'll come to a decision after a "think about" session; I can assure myself that I will spend the ten minutes, and if I haven't made a decision, I'll just write another task.