website/content/posts/deliverables-and-activities-ahah-moment.md
2025-06-28 17:36:00 +02:00

30 lines
1.2 KiB
Markdown
Raw Permalink Blame History

This file contains invisible Unicode characters

This file contains invisible Unicode characters that are indistinguishable to humans but may be processed differently by a computer. If you think that this is intentional, you can safely ignore this warning. Use the Escape button to reveal them.

---
title: 'Deliverables and Activities Ahah!! Moment'
date: 2008-07-15T01:32:39.000Z
draft: false
taxonomies:
tags: [ "bfo"]
categories: [ "project"]
---
Something I already knew became suddenly clear today : the product or
product pieces in the WBS and the relation to the activities. Although
I already knew for a long time that it is good practice to make the
WBS deliverable oriented instead of activity oriented it remained
always a gradient where activities blended seamlessly in
deliverables.
The key was that I used a mental trick derived from 'Getting Things
Done', which says that you must write your activities action oriented,
with a verb, active voice, i.e. do something. I was rephrasing the
activities this way (more bang per spreadsheet cell). 
Now I applied this reasoning to the WBS work packages, but I rewrote
it as things, or part of things. Again the clarity improved
considerably and wordiness got down. And then : klabammm.... flash of
light : activities were clearly separated from the WBS work packages,
the grey area between them was gone!!!.
I am quite sure if I read my PM books again I will find this trick in
every single one, but I had to "invent" it myself before I understood
and felt it, instead of just knowing it.