Just a few random thoughts on the tail end of a turkey weekend.

Do you design & engineer solutions whilst drafting? Consider planning out your projects more before you sit down at the computer or drafting table. It seems that most people just dive right in. Oh sure, there’s budgeting and scheduling (and hopefully element lists) that will help define the project and help you to focus on the various bits and pieces. But you can save a bit of grief later on by further subdividing your project. Note that I am speaking more about the construction and engineering involved in a project. Consider breaking the project it into chunks.

Chunk management 101:

Reduce the total number of dependancies between chunks. How can these chunks be delimited so that they are as independent of each other as possible?

Flexibility is the key. When you have to make changes a week into drafting, you will be glad when the changes don’t weasel a finger into every aspect of your project, causing a steaming pile of dreaded revision hell.

Intelligent chunking allows you to manage changes and revisions more accurately and in less time.

Look at the timeline. Which chunk will be engineered first? What chunks get built first? Which chunks depend on other chunks?

Record your chunks. Write them out on a cocktail napkin, draw pretty charts, keep a page in your diary. However you approach your chunks, write them down somewhere. The main thing is this: keep a sense of perspective concerning the chunks vs the whole project. Look for the connections, the shortcuts, the interferences.

Just remember, too much project management makes the baby go blind.