Schedules are not bolts from the blue

‘Let our advance worrying become advance thinking and planning’ - Winston Churchill

Schedule must illustrate the start and finish dates of the initiation elements and summary elements of a goal. Initiation elements and summary elements comprise the work breakdown structure of the each individual milestone. Use Schedules for all small and big milestone that fit on a single sheet. Every single project, plan, dream being put into execution is with the singular objective of achieving success. Everybody who ever initiated a plan based on a dream must have a schedule to see that they make progress and success of their venture. Everyone wants to win, to achieve and to succeed. However, people often underestimate the importance of effective sustainable scheduling while initiating a dream to reality. You must ensure and assess:

- How you estimated your dedication and commitment?

- How you ensured that no hidden task left out in the schedule?

- Any risk not scheduled?

- How you ensured all resources are capable?

- How you predicted quantity is as per scheduled delay?

- Have you scheduled the review mechanism and self assessment?

- Have you scheduled measurements and performance indicators?

- Have you scheduled plan B for all failures/ lapses? And finally

- Have you ensured the schedules and task are aligned to your dream?

Different people will have different perceptions of what successful planning and scheduling means. Plan with scheduling for execution is a process of deciding in advance where one wants to get to the chief strategic goal, which is a part and parcel of your dream. The XV Olympiad in CALGARY involved nearly 2000 athletes from 57 countries in 129 competitive events, attracted over 15,00,000 spectators, was covered by over 5000 journalists, and was run by a staff of 600 professionals complemented by 10,000 volunteers. For those 600 responsible for organizing, planning, scheduling, coordinating, and handling the information requirements for the 16 day extravaganza, the task was overwhelming. 

The top managers of the organizing committee thus turned to a Computer Based Project Planning and Scheduling (CBPPS) system for scheduling and managing the 30,000 tasks organized into 50 projects. The goal for the CALAGRY games was to provide the best games ever, but within the budget. The philosophy employed was to let each project manager plan their own project but meet firm completion dates and budget limits. [R G Holland, ‘The XV Olympic Winter Games: A case study in project management, PM network, Nov’1989]

A ship in a harbor is safe, but that is not what ships were built for

Cynical Perfectionism wipe us

What a specific reminder of role of a machine; what a good reminder it is that safety, security, and survival are not respectful goals of our lives. If we are going to get anywhere, we have to risk venturing into the unknown. Life is about adventure, not just too much perfection. How many of us keep delaying work because we want to get it just perfect? Many a time, what we fail to recognize is our desire for perfectionism is preventing us from getting things done. If you are stalled at a stage of the draft and you keep revising it again and again, it would be advisable to park it for a later stage and move on to a new part. Return to it later on and see it from a different perspective. You might probably notice that what you were hung up about really was not that big of a deal after all. Constantly referring to your outline plan is also helpful in getting perspective. You need to reiterate that your objective is to finish the draft report and therefore it is necessary to constantly keep yourself focused on the final goal.

If your obsessive perfectionism is preventing you from even getting started, then I would suggest you try the following: First, break the task into many little steps and then focus on one part at a time. If you still put it off after breaking it down, then break it down even further into mini pieces. Soon, you will be left with such a simple task that you will be wondering what was keeping you from doing it before! The second step is to give your-self the permission to do a draft version first. Creating a realistic draft is better than not doing anything at all. Getting started is the first step, after which things will positively start progressing.

USA may be the only country in the world where there is no passport control on leaving the country. Leaving India is rather a complex process and you need get customs stamp. You may wonder what is that USA losing and what is that India gaining with this process? In the Schengen group of countries more specifically in Europe it is possible to pass from one country to other without passport control.

When every decision and every order has to come from central office and pass through other layers of the system, such as for any wind company to get an approval from the forest departments it easily takes more than 36 months because of complex and over perfectionism and due to that so many man years, opportunities are being wasted. India Airport security checking is yet another bad example of perfectionism, all where articles, bags scanned through the X-ray machines and yet before you board the flight, your boarding pass will again be stamped, checked, checked and checked at all doors and stairs. Giving another example of how we can make things simple: Cartoonists and artists (R K Laxman and Subhani) are always sketching simple images to show, articulate and convey their messages from all the complex scenarios and situations, characters, tones and moods. Perfectionism is many a times the hurdle in our life that prevents us from finishing what we start, and so we need to learn how to simplify.