Eating an Elephant
So, how do you eat an elephant? It’s simple, one bite at a time.
How do you finish complex and large projects? One step at a time… one “stage” at a time.
The fourth core principle is Manage by Stages.
Following the “manage by stages” principle, we break down large
projects into smaller stages to create focus, and frequent sense of
achievement for people involved in the project.
It’s also
helpful from another angle: it’s not realistic to force ourselves to
plan a large, complex project in detail at the outset. Instead, we
create a high-level plan, and prepare the detail plan of each stage
right before its start. It’s just more realistic. Does it remind you of Agile methods? You’re not alone in this.
On the other hand, “mange by stages” help us set up different controls
for each stage. The end of each stage is also a good time for evaluating
the performance, and updating and checking the business case
(justification) to see if we’re going in the right direction.
Alright, enough with the elephant for now. What do you think about
delegation? What’s the problem when managers do not delegate? What’s the
problem when they do delegate? Think about it until tomorrow, when we
discuss the fifth core principle.
