A better way to organize projects

In my last blog post, I described an example with 6 people and asked you to consider how you would organize them.

The example illustrates an analytical approach to organizing projects based on how people actually work (or more precisely, based on the work process interdependencies). In the video below I describe this approach.

You may ask: Why do we need an “analytical” approach here, aren’t project managers able to do this perfectly well?

Even with only 6 people, there are 6*5 = 30 potential interdependencies! Out of the 30 potential ones, we have 9 actual interdependencies in the example. Still, it’s more than than the human brain can process intuitively. At least my brain. So it is better to use a tool.

With 6 people (or 6 elements in more general) one can simply draw a diagram. A diagram is not a bad tool.

But with larger projects, the diagram will quickly become rather crowded. This is where a software tool can help you. In the video I explain one particular solution, called ProjectDSM.

Before watching the video, I suggest you go back to the example first and try to solve it (it will only take you a couple of minutes). This will give you a sense of how easy or difficult this is to do (maybe you can try do to it first without any tool, and then by drawing a diagram).

If you are interested in applying this approach, there are couple of readings you may want to take a look at. There’s a chapter about it in my own book. If you want to go into more details, I can recommend the book by Eppinger & Browning, which provides a number of examples of how this methodology has been applied in different industries.