Project Experiences

The five life phases of a project are as follows:

·         Conceive – an idea is born

·          Define – a plan is developed

·          Start – a team is formed

·          Perform – the work is done

·         Close – the project is ended
(Portny, Mantel, Meredith, Shafer, Sutton, & Kramer, 2008)

I don’t have any past experience with a specific project but I do have experience with opening and running a business so I will use that as a project example.  I started my salon two years ago with just a vision of what I wanted and a dream. I didn’t have a budget or specific long and short term goals set for the salon. At the beginning I felt that the location I selected would be great since it was next door to a Dairy Queen and a pretty busy baking supply store.  I didn’t really do any research on the demographics of the salon or any specific research on the previous salon that was there and how well it did. I was just excited to find a building that was within my budget and near the area I wanted to open business. Needless to say, two years later the salon isn’t doing very well and I will be relocating soon.  I believe what contributed to the salon’s failure was my blindness going in of the actual costs of running a salon and running it alone with no workers. I went in believing that I would get workers to rent booths and thinking that everything would be fine. If I would have done research of my area and done a price breakdown of running a business before renting out the space, I would have found that this location wasn’t the best option for me.

Parts of the PM process that may have made my first attempt at salon ownership would be;

Market demand- I should have found out the demand for another styling salon in the area I selected as well as made sure there cosmetologists willing to work in that area. Although it is hard to determine if stylists would work in an area, it may have been helpful to me if I did some sort of research on that area. I could have asked the beauty schools students not too far from my salon if they would find it beneficial to work in the area I selected. 

Define Project Specifics – Although I had an idea and knew what I wanted to do with a salon, I never sat down and wrote out a plan. I had everything in my mind of how I wanted things to go but I didn’t have a back-up plan in case things didn’t go as I wanted them to.  In defining specifics of my business, I would have had a clearer picture of reality when it comes to running a business like the costs, the time it consumes, the dedication it takes and potential failures.

Specific project-objectives and success criteria- I could have created a list of long and short-term goals that I would like to accomplish including estimated costs for each objective. I could have also included potential risk factors and ways to avoid those risks or deal with them as they came. It would’ve also helped if I gave myself a deadline to have certain things obtained within the business so that I wouldn’t end up losing so much money.  Finding other financial resources like small business grants would’ve also been useful to me. The major downfall of my current salon is the financial standing. I didn’t get booth renters or many new walk-in clientele.  With the economy falling and customers losing jobs, it wasn’t a very good idea to try and go on a business venture at that particular time.

References: 

Greer, M. (2010).  The project management minimalist: Just enough pm to rock your projects! Laureate Education Ed.

Portny, S. E., Mantel, S. J., Meredith, J. R., Shafer, S. M., Sutton, M. M., & Kramer, B. E. (2008). Project management: Planning, scheduling, and controlling projects. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.