2.2 Identify the conceptual development steps - Video Tutorials & Practice Problems

<v ->Let's talk about these different elements</v> in the project scope process. So the first one we mentioned a minute ago is the idea of conceptual development. Now, conceptual development is a process that addresses the objectives, but more to that, what are the best ways to achieve those objectives? So for example, I may have the objective in mind of changing the bypass system for a highway traffic control in a very high congested area, say Los Angeles on one of their freeways. That's a worthy goal. And anyone who's ever driven in the traffic on, in LA knows that anything that can improve the congestion patterns there is welcome. But the question becomes, what might be some of the ways, the alternative ways that we can go about achieving something like this? So having a goal is good. The conceptual development now is saying, but how do we achieve it? What are some alternative means to make that happen? Some of the steps in this information development are, what's a problem statement? When I'm first trying to decide whether this project is necessary the question has to be asked what problem is it attempting to solve? Or what opportunity is it attempting to gain for this company or for our organization? So first question out of the shoot has to be, have we thought through the reason why we have this project idea in the first place? What is it hoping to do for us? That's where the scope problem statement comes in play, where we wanna understand what is it we're attempting to do. A second component of this idea of information development is gathering as much necessary critical information as possible. Let me go back to my example of the LA freeway situation. As part of trying to decide whether we need another exit ramp to lengthen, to add another lane, to change the on and off traffic patterns. As part of trying to decide how we can improve congestion there, we have to gather as much information as we possibly can. What times of the day is congestion particularly bad? What times of the year is it particularly bad? Are there alternatives that allow us to address this problem without having to spend multi, multi, multimillion dollars lengthening the freeway? We don't know that until we've done a good job of gathering as much possible information as we can. So we understand the problem itself and what are the contributing factors to that problem. We also wanna understand the constraints. Is there a timeframe involved? It has to be done within a limited period of time or with a very limited amount of resources because we're about to be downsized or about to acquire a new company. And therefore, once that happens, we're gonna be in a total mess for six months while we try and transition, you get the idea. Basically, we're trying to say, what are the constraints as part of this conceptual development that are going to inhibit our ability to do this project? Have we done an alternative analysis? That's an important point to consider as well. It's a good idea perhaps to engage in one particular activity, but there may be alternative ways to do the same precise thing. Let me give you one example. It's a very famous example. A large hotel was getting a lot of complaints from their customers because of the slowness of the elevators. Customers complained that they had to wait on the floors for extended periods of time before an elevator would arrive. So that management of the hotel thought about this and they thought, well, let's talk to the engineers. And the engineers said, not a problem we can build in three new banks of elevators that'll only cost you 15 million dollars. Well, that's kind of expensive. What else can we do? The engineers thought, came back and said, not a problem. We can speed up the motors in the elevators to get them up and down that much faster. That'll cost you 5 million dollars. They thought a little bit more and finally, the hit upon a novel idea, a relatively simple one, but a powerful one. They installed mirrors in the hallways outside of elevator blocks. They put up very large mirrors and they found the complaints about slowness of elevators dropped down to almost zero because while people were waiting, they started turning to the mirror and kind of checking out their hair or whatever and it would allow them to get on the elevator in a certain amount of time and the complaints dropped off. And you see, that's a simple example, famous example but a simple example of asking a question, what are the alternatives? Yes, this might be a solution. Are there other solutions as well? The conceptual development then says once we've done the alternative analysis, once we've set upon these ideas, then let's be specific. What are the objectives that this project is intended to accomplish? Develop them, explain them clearly so that we really understand what it is we're attempting to do. Now, as part of this process, we develop what are called problem statements. Problem statements for any project are intended to identify clearly what problem we're attempting to resolve. What's the issue here? What's the problem that's prompting us to look in this direction in the first place? And in order to do that, we're developing conceptually the ideas for the project. Number one, what we wanna do is we wanna reduce the overall project complexity. Get it down to specifics. This is not the time folks to make a project too excessively complicated, too theoretical, too ethereal. Our goal here is to make the project as specific as possible. And in doing that, we want to reduce the complexity, be precise. We want to get our goals and our objectives clearly stated, what it is, what we want to do. If necessary, do we need reference points? Do we need to provide any sort of references? So for example, if it's a government contract, we have to reference the specific problem statement that the government put out or the request for proposal, the RFP that the government is requiring of us. So reference the critical nature of what we're attempting to do. Problem statements and successful conceptual development also requires complete understanding of the problem. Don't assume that we sort of understand what the problem is about. We have to be very clear in our minds. And by the way, we have to be clear collectively in our minds, it does no good if I'm sitting in a room with six other people and because nobody has verbalized in front of all of us the precise nature of the problem, it's allowed each one of us individually to come up with our own understanding of what the problem is in this particular situation. That's when problems occur. When we're trying to have a complete understanding of the nature of the problem that this project is intending to resolve, we have to collectively understand that, it can't be the results of one person. It has to be all of us. Part of that process then is a very important idea and it's called the statement of work, the SOW. The statement of work is our way of demonstrating that we understand the problem. And by that I mean it's a detailed description of what's required. What's the work required for this project? If the project is intended to resolve an issue, to resolve a problem, the statement of work is our explanation of what needs to be done in order for that project to succeed. So the statements of work that you might be called upon to develop in your organization are gonna include some very important points. Don't be afraid to write these out. Don't be afraid to be specific about them because it's important to get this internalized in your own head as to what exactly is going on. So effective statements of work are going to include some introduction and background. In other words, why are we doing this? What was the the reason that this has taken place? I require for my students, for example, that when they develop a statement of work based on their own organizations they work in, I ask them the question, what's the specific problem that this project idea you're coming up with is intended to address? And they start thinking about it. And I said, no, give me a background and introduction. Assume I don't know your organization, I don't know the nature of your problems. So tell me about it, give me some introduction and background that allows me to understand what your thought process is. A technical description, statements of work here. When I say a technical description, what I mean is being precise. So we're trying to explain the work required for the project, but technical could also include the size of the concrete abutments that are going to be necessary in order to block off traffic while we're reconfiguring the lanes. It doesn't have to be technical in an electronic sense, like how many milibites per second the signal receiver is supposed to be able to process. It can be just technical in terms of the nature of the challenge that we're attempting to undertake. Timeline and milestones. A good statement of work is going to specify how long it is expected to take. This project is of a six month duration. It will include four milestones. The milestones might be things like final sign off at the back end, initial acceptance of the project concept near the front, things like that. A milestone simply identifies periods along the way that suggest how the project is performing. So when I develop my statement of work, I have to give a sense of not simply the background of the project or the problem I'm dealing with and the technical description of it but also how long this project should take in order to get to completion. What's the timeframe? What does the customer expect? What are their goals? Clearly, if customer goals are out of line with what our company can deliver, we're facing a dilemma. We could argue, well, we have to change their perception or we have to change our capabilities so we can achieve their expectations. Or we may look at that and if we're hard nosed about it, we may say, you know what? We can't accomplish this. It's outside of our purview. It's not a technical area that we can succeed at. We should walk away from it at that point. Any one of those alternatives may be appropriate. I'm not saying we should cancel a project immediately but neither am I saying we should continue to pursue one if we cannot line up our capabilities with client expectations.