When do you need to plan a project?

Small businesses are often in a quandary. They’ve got lots of things to do, but often few resources. How to determine when it’s best to formally plan a project or just do it without a plan?

For many small companies, much of this is determined by the owner or the manager. What is important to accomplish? Projects are developed because the deliverable is important to the goals of the business. Whatever the outcome of the project, it moves the business forward in a pre-determined way.

Projects have deliverables that are unique. Project tasks may be outsourced, or you can assign current staff to help on the project team.

Plan a project

For example, when it’s time to move the business and find another location, as an owner you’ll want to be involved. You’ll also probably hire a real estate broker for help in finding the right space in the right location for the right price. Your current staff may want to be involved in order to provide feedback on the various aspects of the location and the move. Once the move is complete, the project is done and everyone goes back to their normal work patterns.

Relocating your business is the perfect project. You’ll want to form a team, put together a plan with dates, and track your progress to meet a pre-defined date.

As a small business owner or manager, if you’re having trouble getting things done, here are a few tips on determining the need to plan a project.

Support your strategic plan

If the deliverable you need supports your strategic plan, you may need a project. If your strategic plan includes a marketing campaign to increase awareness about your product, consider planning a formal project.

If you don’t have a strategic plan, perhaps a project to create one for 2016 is in order.

Support your revenue goals

If you’re trying to increase your revenues, you may have an idea for a new product. The development and delivery of this product probably rates a formal project, complete with schedules, tracking, and deliverables. If you want something done, create a plan and assign someone responsible.

Support decreasing expenses

When you’re not increasing revenues, you’re trying to decrease expenses. Projects that help to decrease expenses might be a new software package that streamlines your social media delivery, or new accounting software that better tracks the business.

This one is a bit trickier – you often have to spend some money in order to insure lower costs at a later date. Check this carefully – you don’t want to just change where the money is going, you want to spend less.

Take the time now or later

Assigning a project manager and creating a planned project can seem like a lot of time and trouble for small business owners. Taking the time to think through the project on the front end reduces the need for clean-up on the backend. The time is spent either planning and controlling the outcomes and deliverables or trying to recover from an unforeseen disaster. And it always costs more to fix the broken deliverable than it does to do it right the first time.

It’s your choice.

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How do you determine whether to plan a project in your business? Let us know in the comments.