Slicing Projects and Sub Projects

J

jasonswank

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Hello,

I need a bit of advice. I'm the Marketing Director for a Symphony Orchestra and I am trying to find the best way to "slice" my projects. For example, buying radio and TV advertising for the concerts happens throughout the year, but I'm not sure if "Buy TV advertising for season" is the project or "Buy TV advertising for Concert #1" is. Or is it "Promote Concert #1"? Aack! Any help out there?

Thanks so much.
 
It depends. :-)

There's no right answer, really. Which one best allows you to get your work done?

I've found it most helpful to phrase my Projects in terms of concrete, specific goals ("Buy advertising...") rather than using vague, broad terms ("Promote concert..."). I try to answer the question, "How will the world be different once this is done?"

Does that answer your questions?
 
Heuristics

Some rules of thumb from project management:

Tasks should be small enough that you can tell whether or not you've made progress in a reporting period, for GTD use a week as you do a review weekly . Break tasks into smaller modules if necessary. Tasks should be large enough that they're worth tracking/putting on your list. In GTD this is greater than two minutes.

Tasks should have some type of deliverable, some way to tell that they're done. (Examples: a phone number, a draft document on paper or PC, an appointment made, etc.)

Projects should not drag on forever. If your project is long in duration and/or requires a lot of hours of work to complete (not necessarily the same), break it into smaller projects. Try to break projects into pieces that won't take more than a quarter (3 months) to complete or more than 250 hours (or some smaller number of hours you can live with.)

Making the project "Buy advertising for concert 1" allows you to have the success of completing the project and having a fresh project on your list "Buy advertising for concert 2". Project turnover keeps your lists fresh and keeps you motivated.

Stop and appreciate completions. Celebrate the completion of large or significant tasks. Recognize that you've checked off a whole project from your list.
 
jasonswank;51585 said:
Hello,

I need a bit of advice. I'm the Marketing Director for a Symphony Orchestra and I am trying to find the best way to "slice" my projects. For example, buying radio and TV advertising for the concerts happens throughout the year, but I'm not sure if "Buy TV advertising for season" is the project or "Buy TV advertising for Concert #1" is. Or is it "Promote Concert #1"? Aack! Any help out there?
Click to expand...

It seems like the first project is "Decide on buying tv ads per concert or per season." If you know the answer to that, then you know what to do next; if you don't know the answer to that, you can't take the next step. In other words, the names of your projects reflect how *you* conceptualize your duties. If you organize your list of projects in a way that does not reflect how you are actually going to do things, your list will be dysfunctional. Even if you buy tv ads on a per-season basis, you might have a project "Promote Concert #1 as an All Beethoven program" or "Promote Concert #1 Guest Conductor" or "Promote Concert #1 with Mailings." You're not going to have a project "Market Symphony" because that is your job, not a part of your job.
 
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