List 5 key attributes of a project and
describe how they each differ from business as usual.
describe how they each differ from business as usual.
- Projects are established to
deliver a significant change rather than deliver the core business
activities of an organisation. For example, a national disability
charity who wants to maximise the involvement of volunteers in its
core activity nationwide would establish a project to undertake the
research, make recommendations and establish the new volunteering
opportunities, but once these opportunities have been established,
the ongoing management of the volunteering activities would become
business as usual. - A project is time limited whereas
business as usual continues indefinitely. Using the example above,
the project to identify new volunteering opportunities would be time
limited. Once the new opportunities had been identified and
established the project would end and the management of the new
volunteering activity would be maintained on a continuous basis and
become business as usual. - A project has one-off deliverables
that are not repeated whereas business as usual has deliverables
which are repetitive and ongoing. Again, using the example of the
project above, the project has one-off deliverables; to scope
current volunteering activity across the country; to identify new
opportunities to involve volunteers; to embed the new opportunities
into current business activity. These deliverables are undertaken
once and then the ongoing repetitive activity of recruiting and
managing the volunteers is business as usual. - A project has a person or team of
people who have been tasked to deliver the highly bespoke project
plan whereas business as usual has highly procedural working
practices to enable consistency in delivery of regular operations.
For example, the national disability charity would identify a
project manager and/or team to oversee the project described above.
The project team would deliver the project plan and would then be
disbanded once the project had finished. With business as usual the
people/team work on regular operations on a continuous basis within
the organisation’s operational processes and procedures. - A project has specific resources
attached to it and a constrained project budget. The national
disability charity would allocate specific resources to the above
project and develop a specific project budget for the project
activity. With business as usual, the organisation’s activities
would be funded from the general operational budget and resources
for each activity would not necessarily be identified so
specifically.
Katie, good examples and sufficient detail to get the marks in the exam, well done.