Mini-Micro Proyectos
Mini-Micro Proyectos
Mini-Micro Proyectos
Micro Proyectos
The typical life cycle for mini-projects starts when the idea is presented
to the stakeholders. The stakeholders rank those ideas by a variety of
factors (immediate impact on customer satisfaction, revenue growth,
cost reduction, risk involved, source of the idea, etc.). Once the ideas
are ranked, they are assigned time-slots to be completed. Those time
slots are usually related to business considerations (retail over the
internet is a very seasonal business) and resource availability. The final
step of this previous process in to create a Vision document; this is like
a “business scope” and it is called a “Why” document (Why do we want
to do this project?). For mini-projects this is typically a two to three pages
document. This correlates very well to the Initial phase proposed by PMI.
Then the process falls in the hands of a project manager. A project
manager can have at any given time between two and five of this small
projects. When the project manager receives the Why document
(already signed off by the stakeholders, of course), his first task is to
create a “What” document (What do we want to build?). This document
is the actual scope of the project and it could contain several of the
typical components of a big project (see Project Management Processes
applied to small projects). When the What document is approved, the
actual execution starts. Once the project is completed, there is a formal
closing (based mainly on the QA assessment of the product) and the
project is handed over to operations. These phases are also very close
to the Intermediate and final phases of the project life cycle proposed by
PMI.
Micro-Projects
Under the current model, a micro-project is less roughly less than a week
of work. It is very difficult to fit the traditional life cycle in such a short
time. The product management team came up with the idea of using
Total Quality Management (TQM) principles to manage this type of
projects. The business areas responsible of defining and developing the
product, create a rough draft of the idea (usually an improvement to an
existing product) along with the stakeholders. This idea is written up in
the form of a requirement (scope). By definition, this scope is already
signed off by the business lines. The description is then provided to a
project manager who is responsible to review it and find any technical
gaps. Once the technical gaps are closed, the project manager, using a
task tracking tool, assigns the work required to the resources and follow
up on its development. The turn around time from the initial idea to the
developed product is less than two weeks (assuming the resources had
been allocated).
This is clearly a different approach to the one proposed by PMI.
However, it is a logical approach because micro-projects are not aimed
to revolutionize the way the company does business but improve one of
its products. However, as it will be explained later, the project
management role is instrumental on the success of those micro-
projects.