Dana Brownlee‘s Linkedin profile shows that she is “a dynamic, energetic, results-oriented facilitator and corporate trainer, specialized in facilitating training workshops that engage participants and provide them tips and
techniques they can begin using immediately.” We are connected and I get alerts whenever she is posting something new online. Her latest post “6 Key Questions to Ask BEFORE Starting a New Project” caught my attention and gave me the idea to use her 6 questions to see if our website project passes the test. Without any further ado let’s get going:
1. What problem are we trying to solve and is a project the best way to do it?
Our main goal is to share our experience with the younger generation. The World around us is more and more interconnected and the online medium gives everyone the opportunity to reach audiences of millions of people; nobody can
ignore this nor pass on the opportunity to get out there and be noticed.
2. Is this a good use of our resources (time, money, staff, etc.)?
Florin and I talked about that almost right off the bat. We are starting small with just the two of us doing the work. We also have a webmaster to rely on for technical situations beyond our knowledge as administrators and users. The
costs involved are minimum. Our implication at the beginning is a few hours a month and we will share the blogging duties to make it reasonable for each one of us.
3. Do the anticipated benefits outweigh the risks?
Oh yes, that is a good question. My wife always talks about “opportunity cost”, especially when a project involving something we are passionate about comes along. My guess is as long as we are happy and satisfied with it, we should
get more benefits out of it and become better project managers in the process. Another clear benefit is being able to use the work done here for PDUs. There are many ways to get our PDUs and countless online offers both for free and
for a cost. In the end I think I do my best when I can contribute hands-on and try out my own ideas.
4. What are the anticipated risks?
The main risk is rather obvious: people won’t like it and our website will be completely ignored. Some other possible risks could be:
– us to lose interest in doing it
– the required time to keep it relevant might increase to the point it might overwhelm us
5. What is the cost of not doing the project?
Gandalf (The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring”) says in the movie:
“All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us.”
I guess by not doing this project we could spend our time in a different way. There is no monetary cost really involved unless we do shopping instead. You can guess neither of us are shoppers and if we need anything, we do it like
real men: find it where to get it from, go there, buy it and get out.
6. Should we walk away?
Based on all the above I think the answer is “No”. There are benefits in doing it, risks are manageable, the time required per month follows the preferred model by PMI and costs are minimum. Last but not least it would help us
achieve our goal. That alone should be sufficient. We hope to pass the test of time!