Using Project Management to Plan your Year - Part 2/2

In this second podcast of the series, Ricardo talks about portfolio management of personal projects. He explains that it is necessary to map and select which projects will be undertaken, which will be later, a which will not be made and which requiring a study before deciding. Ricardo says that projects should be selected according to the goals we have set and gives tips on how these objectives can be defined and how they are selected.

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Episode transcript

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Speaker 1 (4s): Hello everybody welcome to the five minutes BMI podcast today. We like to continue with the podcast about your portfolio management approach for an upcoming years. Remember that last week I discuss it about your strategic map, where you put, where you want to go in the house. What will be the objectives that we will support this? I remember quite a tough life, or you can use this for personal or professional life are both. I use both, but if you wanted to do this only for your professional life or your personal life, you can do and den, we put out all the projects in a chart, measuring benefit and cost or effort.

So now I'd like to explain how do I do to select the projects? So first I take every single objective of my strategic map. For example, I put, okay, do have quite a tough life. I put money, I put love and I put health and how can I split it in physical health and psychological health? And what I do know, I take not a piece of paper. And then I put as a title, the name of this objective, and they put a post it notes below with the name of the projects that support that objective, for example, to do a checkup, the checkup support my health.

Okay. But the checkup support mostly my physical health let's suppose that I have a, not a project is to learn meditation, okay. Meditation support my physical health, OK. Support, but support psychological health. And then it will be put below the order area. So what I do, I pull populate. So let's suppose that you have 16 objectives. So you put 16 pieces of paper with 16 titles and you put a post it notes.

Or if the project that support directly to that objective, one thing, some of the projects they support to three, four objectives, no problem at all. This is really good. I have, for example, one project that can support me in the money aspect that supports me on the love aspect and can support me in many, many other objectives. Okay. So what I do, I populate this, what? This will help me. This will help me to check if the projects that I'm proposing for the upcoming IRRs, they are sufficient for the objectives that I have.

So imagine that one objective without a single product, this can address me two things. First, there's a gap So I need to think. And a project that will support this aspect, our second, this objective. So good. It's important in my strategies, but I'm so well on this that I do need to do anything this year to support this. So let's suppose that I want to become a risk management professional and want to hear improve my risk management approach.

Dan, I have Project certify as our M P by PMI. So this is Project will support the subjective, but if I want to start and to become more agile, you got a child. Maybe the rest Management will not fit so well because my strategy is different. So this is the way in what I do. I take something like that, the round post-its with color. So the color code that I used is green it's to do yellow, ease, to postpone due.

If you have time to read, don't do it. And I start looked into the map and looking to do the columns with all the post-its. And I start putting the greens, reds and yellows. I put greens mostly in the low cost. High benefit does are great. It do not take too much a Fort, but it's good benefit than this is what I went to do most. And the one's that they don't want to do it do it's the high cost low benefit, then I will put, so a look at, and on the map I do this, but in the middle, how do I decide?

I decide by comparison. I don't use a speed because there's just too much complex analytical, Yara the process. But what I do, I compare Project if I have time to do this or this, which is better. And then I returned back to the columns and see all, but if I don't do this, then these objectives will fail. So I tried to make good decisions. So I did this for my 67 projects, but show him of them. I do not have the full answer because some of them are so complex that I don't know if I need to do or not this year, which ones I put the black dots, the black circle, black circle, mince study.

And then I spent January and February preparing maybe a mind map or some more deep study may or sending some emails, talking to people to decide. And if I will do not do or delay. So some of them I know that I need to do, but some of them I'm unsure about that. Then I studied to the side and what I expect by February, all of them, all blacks will disappear. There will become red and yellow or green.

And then I forget all the reds. I forget all the yellows in life. I focus on the greens. What are all the Year to make sure it is? Is that that we'll be doing all the greens. I prepare a spreadsheet. I put on my GTD software, the softer to do the getting things done. So the Dave Allen approach. So this is what I do all the time. And this is very simple. It took me one day. And it's great for you to put on the paper because this is for example, right now, this big, big paper.

It's only my bedroom right now. Today it's so in my bedroom, and that may be thinking about that. This is a way of challenging me in this time of the year is perfect to do that because it's a renewal. Always. I know that the new years is another day, but for us does numbers. They represent something. A lot of people that I will stop smoking next year, I will do gym next year. I will do something. So take this opportunity in this movement to use project management, your own life.

Because if you sell, I'm talking this to the project manager. If you sell product management, you need to get it. This project management, you need to think your life like the project plan, like an objective. Of course, we are not thinking 10 years ahead. You can easily think two years ahead. And I think what should you study? What books should you read to prepare you yourself, better prepare yourself better for the future.

And to take this opportunity, like a sad in the retrospective than the prospective for 2012. So with this, I finished this Podcast. I apologized for this long, long Podcast, but next year, next week we start talking about project management, but we in a very positive way in very well planets for the upcoming days, great ear for everybody. And next week again, with the five minutes PM, Podcast.

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Using Project Management to Plan your Year - Part 2/2

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