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In life we tend to study only successful people, companies, governments and so on. Even when we study the lives of these “successes” we tend to gloss over their mistakes, indiscretions and failures. Take for example, Abraham Lincoln who is considered one of America’s greatest presidents. He had a number of failures on his road to the White House (listed here ). He lost numerous political races and even had a nervous breakdown at one point.

So what’s the point? Perhaps we can learn just as much or more from a person’s successes as from their failures. All of us have faced and will face again, both success and failure in school, work or life.  Therefore we need to accept that both will be a part of our lives. Furthermore we need to learn how to take our mistakes and turn them into successes. Take for example Donald Trump, he’s a multi-millionaire who has been enormously successful in business. However, he wasn’t always a success. When the real estate market tanked in the early 90’s, his fortune evaporated and he was left owing over $900 million dollars to banks. He once remarked that he drove past a homeless man one day and said ‘that man is $900 million dollars richer than me!’. He didn’t let his failure become associated with who he was. Instead he kept working and learned from past mistakes. This is something we should all aspire to. This is why I recommend that after every group project that the group gets together and fills out a lessons learned document. This serves to document your successes and mistakes and understand why they occurred.

Finally, this post was motivated by a great speech by J.K. Rowling who was the graduation speaker at Harvard in 2008. Her speech discusses the power of going your own way in life and what failure has to teach us. She certainly would know what both failure and success feel like. She wrote Harry Potter while almost homeless and broke. It is now a billion dollar industry. Please check out her speech;

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When I was in school I never considered my group assignments as ‘projects’. Instead I looked at them as the same type of work I had done before, but now shared with other people. In fact I never really knew what project management was until after I graduated from business school.

I realize now that group assignments can be considered small projects and that they can be completed easier by using some basic tools. In a great little book called ‘Managing Smaller Projects’, Mike Watson discusses small projects and how they require a different mindset. First of all Watson defines projects as having at least 5 characteristics; an objective, start and end dates, a temporary team and milestones and tasks. A small project is one where there are a lot of constraints on time and resources.

Almost all group assignments in school are just small projects since they have both time and size constraints. These constraints force them to be usually a few weeks to months in duration and in groups of 5 or less. Therefore students typically have to get organized and start working quickly if they intend to meet their deadlines.

So what should a group do to ensure that they are working quickly but effectively? Well Watson says that small projects sometimes get derailed because the team wastes time searching for solutions or getting into too much detail for the scope of the project. To help solve this problem groups should write a project outline and have their professor or teacher review at some early point. The project outline is a document which details; the objectives of the project, the way your group will accomplish the objectives, goals, communication plan and finally your milestones. This may sound like a lot, but it really doesn’t have to be. I’ll break down these things one by one.

1. Objectives – You need to clarify what your purpose is and make sure everyone in the group is aware of it. Watson says that objectives should be S.M.A.R.T. which means Stated clearly, Measurable, Agreed upon, Realistic and Time sensitive.
2. Proposed project – What exactly will your project be about? As it becomes clearer, be sure to write down all the details as a group.
3. Communication plan – If you agree on how and when you will communicate, you’re more likely to actually do it. Make sure everyone has each other’s contact details. Using a site like EnterTheGroup.com to keep track of your work and communication can help.
4. Milestones & tasks – Once you decide what your project will look like you then need to think about milestones and tasks. A milestone is a point where your project has completed a certain number of tasks. Groups should create milestones so that there is metaphorical path from beginning to end. For small projects there will only be a few milestones each consisting of a couple of tasks.

Ultimately a group project should follow the same steps as a large project. However the difference is that small projects shouldn’t get bogged down in details. They should write an outline, keep track of tasks and milestones and definitely meet on and offline, but these formalities should be brief and to the point.

Once these steps are mastered, you’ll notice that the formality isn’t a time waster, but instead a time saver. Your projects will definitely come out better if you write and stick to an outline.

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