Using the words "project" or "task" in your work is a daily occurrence. however, while those words are somehow perceived as "units of work", there may be surprisingly few business people who understand exactly what they mean. as you deepen your understanding of words, you will be able to grasp its essence and your attitude toward business will change.
what is a project in this article? to learn how they mean and how they differ from tasks.
what is a project?
first, let's take a look at the project. what is a project difference between
> define < projects
- achieve a goal through multiple sets of tasks
- the goal can be small or large
- carried out by the human hand
- often carried out in cooperation with other companies, not just internally
- the deadline for achieving the target is set.
- there's always a starting point and a finish point.
- manage midpoints and see progress
- most of the time they work together.
- then, if you search for "project", you can see the following explanation:
"apart from the organization, the original organization, the organization or its operations that are contingposed to achieve the purpose, in the development of computer systems, large-scale development often involves a project."
many people seem to misunderstand the word "project team". at a workshop in a course, about 70% of the group draws an organizational chart of the project, and the group draws an organizational chart that says, "under the project manager, there is a sales department, a manufacturing department, a technical department, a marketing department, and a quality assurance department." but this means a substantive department, not a project team.
the project team involves several teams, including it teams, marketing teams, prototyping and mass production teams, promotional teams, and design teams. on top of that, the right people from each department gather to form a team. since many japanese companies are vertically divided organizations, the concept of this project team is often not permeated, and therefore, barriers to projects often arise.
what is a task?
just as tasks mean "imposed effort" in english, in japan it often means "one by one work to carry out a project" or is used in units. by the way, if you use the word task overseas, you can understand it in a similar way.
Specifically, a task is a job to be done. Assigning a task means that the project manager assigns the work to each team, and the expression "task completed" means that the task is completed.
Otherwise, it is often used in software-related terms. In software, a task means "what to do" or "the state in which the application is running" If your computer is Windows 10, right-click on the taskbar and you will find an item called "Task Manager", so you can click to see a list of currently running applications (tasks). If you're using a Mac, "Activity Monitor" is the equivalent of a task manager.
note that tasks change their meaning depending on the scene in which they use words.
relationship between project and task
The project consists of various tasks and plans the human resources and equipment necessary for achieving business goals (e.g., starting mass production of new products, introducing ERP, etc.). The task of accomplishing a project is called a task, and you can accomplish a project by completing the tasks one by one. Let me give you one example.
< project > task < construction and full-scale operation of ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) >
- survey on business conditions
- business issue analysis
- risk analysis
- ERP SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS DEFINITION
- operational planning
- ERP SYSTEM EXTERNAL DESIGN
- ERP SYSTEM INTERNAL DESIGN
- program development
- regular progress meeting
- program unit testing
- program join test
- ERP SYSTEM COMPREHENSIVE TEST
- ERP SYSTEM OPERATION TEST
- FULL-SCALE OPERATION OF ERP SYSTEM
The above is a rough task for a project called "Building and Full-Scale Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP)". There are more detailed tasks in a real project, and by sharing and executing them across teams, you can get the project closer to completion. The number of people involved in projects varies, large and small, but there is no difference in the relationship between projects and tasks.
factors that cause a project to fail
there are various projects, large and small, among companies, and they are working on simultaneous progress. unfortunately, not all of them will succeed. there are many factors that can occur in a project and can fail. what are the factors?
factor 1. lack of team communication
many projects fail due to a team's lack of communication. a team that doesn't communicate smoothly doesn't facilitate information sharing, delays the information needed to drive the project, and, as a result, delays the project. in addition, if there is an error in quality information, the resulting deliverables cannot meet the quality standards.
factor 2. lack of clear guidelines for the project
even though the project was launched, there are many cases where the policy is not set down on the way without clear guidelines. progress management is also difficult without clear guidelines, so the project will continue to be far from the goal.
factor 3. the line of command is disturbed.
if there are multiple managers in the project and their communication is not smooth, the team's chain of command will be disrupted and the site will be confused. most projects, especially those with strong political elements, fail.
factor 4. tight project schedule
some projects can have a fairly tight schedule due to unreasonable deadlines from customers. this tends to neglect quality control, resulting in poorly quality deliverables that fail to meet schedules.
these factors often cause projects to fail. it fails due to almost the same factors in both manufacturing and it industries. first of all, it is important to create a system that facilitates team communication. and you'll also need a management tool that takes a bird's-eye view of your project.
once you understand the meaning of the words in your project, what does it take to make your project successful next time? let's consider.
No comments:
Post a Comment