60 to 90 minutes
Explain the purpose of the activity and write it down on the board or mind map.
Background information
If your participants are familiar with project management methods and techniques, you can explain that hierarchical breakdown of the deliverables is a common technique that is usually referred to as a work breakdown structure or a product breakdown structure, but since those names have created many misunderstandings through the years, P3.express has coined its own term: Deliverables Map.
Preparing the map
Spend a minute or two explaining how a hierarchical breakdown is done, and then ask them to take 10 minutes working in their groups and creating one. Their output can be
- face-to-face:
- A drawing on a board, or
- a drawing on a piece of paper, or
- an arrangement of sticky notes.
- online:
- As plain text, or
- in a mind mapping application.
When the time is up, ask each facilitator to present their map. There’s a good chance their map is not perfect, in which case, don’t try to turn it into a perfect map, but just give them a few comments on the most important improvements they can make (those that make their future refinements and detailing of the map easier).
When all the maps are reviewed, explain that Deliverable Maps are usually created as mind maps, then open a new node underneath Part 2 > A05 in your own mind map and start creating a well-formed map based on their data. Explain every decision you make for the map, and ask them for suggestions wherever possible.
The following is an example of a relatively well-formed structure:
- ArtoLibre@Artophile
- Infrastructure
- New server
- Wave 1
- Implementation
- Training
- Content conversion
- Wave 2
- Implementation
- Training
- Content conversion
- Wave 3
- Identification
- Implementation
- Training
- Content conversion
- Wave 4
- Identification
- Implementation
- Training
- Content conversion
- Wave 5
- Implementation
- Training
This map is based on the assumption that training and content conversion are included in the project, which may be different from what your participants assumed for their projects.
Only the third and fourth waves have an identification deliverable (creating a list of applications that are the subject of that wave) because the subject of the other waves is defined beforehand (E.g., the subject of the second wave is the office suite).
Scheduling
Spend 5 to 10 minutes explaining the scheduling concept. Explain that it follows the mapping of deliverables, and that it can be dependency-based (presented as a Gantt Chart) or priority-based (on a task board or Kanban board) depending on the nature of the project, and sometimes on our preferences.
It’s best to schedule the ArtoLibre@Artophile with a dependency-based system, but because of its simplicity, a priority-based approach would work fine as well.
Give them 10 minutes to create a simple schedule based on the Deliverables Map, either dependency-based or priority-based (or both, if they want).
When the time is up, ask each facilitator to present their output.
A priority-based schedule is a single list of items ordered based on some type of priority, in such a way that items on the top will be done first. Such a schedule is a little too plain for our project at this time and would look like this:
- New server
- Wave 1 implementation
- Wave 1 training
- Wave 1 content conversion
- Wave 2 implementation
- Wave 2 training
- Wave 2 content conversion
- Wave 3 identification
- Wave 3 implementation
- Wave 3 training
- Wave 4 content conversion
- Wave 4 identification
- Wave 4 implementation
- Wave 4 training
- Wave 4 content conversion
- Wave 5 implementation
- Wave 5 training
You’ll probably have to expand it a little to make sense of it; e.g., explain that this plan will be detailed in the monthly management activities, and, for example, a single item such as “wave 1 implementation” may be broken down into a few items:
- New server
- Wave 1 implementation > the email client
- Wave 1 implementation > the messaging application
- Wave 1 implementation > the cloud storage
- Wave 1 training
- Wave 1 content conversion
- Wave 2 implementation
- Wave 2 training
- Wave 2 content conversion
- Wave 3 identification
- Wave 3 implementation
- Wave 3 training
- Wave 4 content conversion
- Wave 4 identification
- Wave 4 implementation
- Wave 4 training
- Wave 4 content conversion
- Wave 5 implementation
- Wave 5 training
Then explain that, after breaking it down, those items will be ordered again, and they may not be done one after the other anymore; e.g.,
- New server
- Wave 1 training > general, introductory training
- Wave 1 implementation > the email client
- Wave 1 training > the email client
- Wave 1 implementation > the messaging application
- Wave 1 training > the messaging application
- Wave 1 implementation > the cloud storage
- Wave 1 training > the cloud storage
- Wave 1 content conversion
- Wave 2 implementation
- Wave 2 training
- Wave 2 content conversion
- Wave 3 identification
- Wave 3 implementation
- Wave 3 training
- Wave 4 content conversion
- Wave 4 identification
- Wave 4 implementation
- Wave 4 training
- Wave 4 content conversion
- Wave 5 implementation
- Wave 5 training
This type of planning puts less emphasis on timing, and depending on the type of project, it may consider a dynamic scope for the lower parts of the map. Some people may want to have multiple columns for their priority-based schedule, where each column represents a period of time, and doing so, puts more emphasis on timing. This can be fine when used in the right set-up, but there’s no need to do so in this workshop.
The following is an example of a dependency-based schedule:
ArtoLibre@Artophile 0 15m 30m 1. Infrastructure ──────────┼──────────────────┼──────────────────┼ 1.1. New server │██ │ │ 2. Wave 1 ──────────────────┼──────────────────┼──────────────────┼ 2.1. Implementation │ ██████ │ │ 2.2. Training │ █ │ │ 2.3. Content conversion │ ███ │ │ 3. Wave 2 ──────────────────┼──────────────────┼──────────────────┼ 3.1. Implementation │ ████ │ │ 3.2. Training │ ███ │ │ 3.3. Content conversion │ ███│ │ 4. Wave 3 ──────────────────┼──────────────────┼──────────────────┼ 4.1. Identification │ ██ │ │ 4.2. Implementation │ ███ │ │ 4.3. Training │ ███ │ 4.4. Content conversion │ │ █████ │ 5. Wave 4 ──────────────────┼──────────────────┼──────────────────┼ 5.1. Identification │ ████ │ 5.2. Implementation │ │ ███ │ 5.3. Training │ │ ██████ │ 5.4. Content conversion │ │ ███ │ 6. Wave 5 ──────────────────┼──────────────────┼──────────────────┼ 6.1. Implementation │ │ █ │ 6.2. Training │ │ ██ │ A chart on paper where the bars are drawn by hand based on dependencies they imagine for elements is good enough for our purpose – in fact, a simple hand-drawn Gantt Chart like this that is well integrated into a complete project management system is hundreds of times more effective than a professional, CPM-based schedule that is not fully integrated.
Give them the confidence that such a schedule is fine and useful, but at the same time, give them a hint or two on how it can become more professional in the future after they’ve implemented a proper project management system. For example, help them imagine what will happen if 3.2. is delayed – they’ll have to revise every direct and indirect successor, whereas if they have a professional schedule, those updates can happen automatically.
Revising the Project Description
At the end of this activity, they have an estimate for the duration of the project, based either on a dependency-based schedule that contains time, or on a rule-of-thumb calculation in a priority-based schedule.
Ask them to revise the duration in the Project Description. Explain that their findings during this activity may cause other changes to the Product Description as well – basically, anything they do during the initiation activity group creates a better understanding of the project, which may be reflected in the Project Description.
Our Project Description didn’t have any information about expected cost, and this is the time to add this. We won’t do it in an exercise, but just assume that they’ve used the Deliverables Map and estimated the cost of each element, and their total is 68 Artopools (the unit of currency in Artopolis). This is another piece of information they need to add to their Project Description.