Using Project Management to Plan Your Year - Part 1/2

In this first podcast of 2, Ricardo gives some tips on how to manage personal projects that take place during the year. He exemplifies with the planning he did for his personal projects for 2011 and 2012. Ricardo explains that the first thing he did was his strategic map and throughout the year, was taking notes of all kinds of projects that have appeared. In the end of 2011, Ricardo did the planning for 2012 selecting the projects he noted and using a scale of benefit X effort/cost.

Download (7 MB)

Episode transcript

The transcript is generated automatically by Podscribe, Sonix, Otter and other electronic transcription services.

Hello everybody welcome to the five Minutes PM podcast today, or like to discuss with you, how do I plan my ear? How do I use the portfolio management approach to think about the future and to address the future of my own business of my own life. This is not about a corporate strategy, but this your own strategy, how I can use portfolio management and project management approach to apply in my own life.

So what I do first, the tools that you need, it's a big, big piece of sheet, pencil, pants, color pants, and post it notes. A lot of callers have posted notes. This is all you need to do that and desire okay. And desire. So what I like to suggest you invite your husband, your wife, your boyfriend, your girlfriend, your friend, whoever you think that can help you on that.

I usually do this with my two daughters. They are very young, but they are very smart to share in, to discuss with me my strategies. And it's good also to teach them how to think strategically in their own feature. So what I start doing, I do make strategic map is strictly wish map. This to me is very, very interesting it from the balanced scorecard approach, but it's not the corporate strategic, no itch or your own strategic approach.

So what I do is start all the top in it, put on the top, what I'm looking for, I'm working hard for what, what does my objective? So I put on the top, let me share with you a short quality of life. This is my main goal. So I want to have quality life and death. I start, and then I put this in a post it notes around this. I put three things, money, health, and love.

If I can address, was there, well, the love friendship, relationships, if I have health. So if I'm not Sikh, if I'm Kay with my health, its the second. If I have enough money to leave, this country thinks will support my quality of life and they may start to decompose this So okay. What is a good health for me? Okay. If I have psychology health, physical health.

So at the start to decompose this and then I prepared my strategic map. You can find this easily on the web. There are a lot of strategic maps that can give you an idea. So is very important. Ineffish struggle to do that means you are working, but you don't know why you are working. You say I'm working to pay my bills, but why, why, why the life is not restricted to pay your bills. It's much more than that. So you need to understand what is driving you to do everything you were doing.

And after debt, what I do during the year, I collect Project ideas. What I call initiatives. So I put what, let me give you some examples. Initiatives. I need to do a trap bill. So I need to, he set up a project to convince myself does is important. Second. I want to publish a book about mind maps. Oh, to turd. Oh I want to think about business opportunities in India, not the one I went.

So this project comes from three, our effort in my life to whap three months, work, six months, work to my PhD for example. And then I, what I do every year, I stopped one day to analyze this. So this ear, this is real number. I have 67 ideas from small, the big ones ideas in what I do.

I put all of this in a post it notes. And then I take four big sheets of paper. I put them together in a two times to a matrix, two sheets and the horizontal into on the vertical forming, a big, big wall. We four s***s on the ground. X I create the graphic on the act X and Y so or Zomato and vertical grids. And that at the horizontal I put benefit in the vertical.

I put cost, but not cost. Meaning money cost me a Fort. I use it cost. But if you don't like this, just change this word to afford. So if for the benefit and I put low height, low or high, what is this? So I have four areas represented by each piece. It's paper. So one area that means low cost, low benefit, the Otter high cost, low benefit, the order, low cost, high benefit and the OT, a high cost high benefit in my put a post it with the name of the project.

It may start plotting this on the wall to talk about the area. And then I place imagine that each posted notes is like a doc in the shot. So I do this. So I put all this project is the benefit is very low, but the causes high. So at least to map all of them, imagine that a project that has a low benefit and high cost there's is the worst option for you. The best option is low cost.

High benefit. The irrelevant projects are cost low benefit. Okay. It's okay to do, but the benefit that's also very low. And this is for your life, that courses, the credentials that you are thinking to do next year, everything related to Your in a fashionable or personal life, you can do this for one, for our nodder or for both. So you put everything on discharge. So this will have a lot of, for example, 67, in my case, posted notes is spread it up on this.

And next week I will explain you're how do I choose the best options? How do I choose the options that our we'll be working with four the upcoming, the years. This is exactly what we offer and what we should offer to all companies to think strategically in portfolio management. And some of us, most of us, we know project management, we know portfolio manager, what, but we don't apply this in our own life.

So I'd like to share this with you. How I use this. I spent one day to do with everything next week. I will explain how did you choose the right options? See you next week.

Menu

Resources & Insights

Products & Services

More Resources & Insights

Ricardo Vargas

Podcasts

Using Project Management to Plan Your Year - Part 1/2

Search in Podcasts

Latest podcast episodes

Book recommendations