Section 2: Possible projects

Possible projects

Where do projects come from? Generally speaking, projects or 'purposeful human activities' come from one of two sources:

• An identified problem or need - a self-identified possible project. The problem or need is something that has to be accomplished by a given date and (probably) to a given budget.
• An instructed endeavour - a 'gifted' possible project. A third party has identified the problem and an instruction has been given that it needs to be sorted out - the project is euphemistically 'gifted' to you. In this case you may have very little control over the time and budget allocated to deal with it.

To clarify your thinking, go to WBA 1.

Is the 'possible project' clear?

A common assumption behind both self-identified and gifted possible projects is that they may well have been developed and/or designed in outline without real appraisal of the possible project context.

If this is the case, the possible project context may (and experience indicates probably will) contain a variety of elements such as problems, issues, causalities and surprises (PICS) that have not been adequately considered in advance. All such items combine to make the possible project unclear.

Gaining clarity

The main ways to achieve clarity with a possible project prior to developing a considered plan are to:

• map out the main elements of the possible project context
• be clear about the main tasks to be done and issues and challenges to be addressed
• prioritise these key elements of context
• select a possible project or a system of challenge (SoC) - much more about this later
• define the main purpose of your project - what it is really trying to change
• develop a preliminary action plan for the project.