M01_02_DIG3521

Project Landscape
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[00:00:12.93] Hey, what's up, everybody. Welcome back to class. This is module 1, video 2. And
in the previous video, what we talked about was what is a project? We help frame and set up
what a project is. And we talked about it in the context of project management as a profession, as
an industry, as a standard, right?

[00:00:33.88] And today, what I want to do is move a little bit further and start talking about this
thing called a project landscape. And this is a unique idea or concept that may be something
that's new for you. So I really want to make sure you lean in and you follow along with the book.
And in the next video, that next thing that's coming up, is going to be all about programs and
portfolios. It's going to be fire. It's going to be awesome. Let's check this out.

[00:00:58.66] All right. So we've got project to landscape. What is a project landscape? Well, in
the last video, we talked about how there are projects, right? Every project has what? One unique
goal, one unique purpose. And so let's think of a project, that in a way, that someone comes to
you and presents a project to you.

[00:01:20.02] So for example, let's say I have a stakeholder, right? And they own this massive
production company, Ami Productions. And Ami Productions comes to me and says, hey, Tim,
we want to build this really cool animation.

[00:01:35.58] How do we do that? And we start going through this process with Ami Animations
and Ami Productions. And we start breaking down. OK, what's the goal? What's the business
value you're really going for? Right? What are some of the specifications? What are some of the
limitations? Like is there a budget limitation? What is the timeline for this, the beginning and the
end? Those kind of temporal objectives, right? Are there resource constraints that are involved?

[00:01:59.53] So all the things we talked about in that last video, we would start to hash these
things out in our mind with our stakeholders to figure out what success really looks like. Now the
next thing we need to think about is we've got this project, and let's say this group comes to you
and you know everything you need to do, you know the exact steps, you've done this a million
times. You're like, don't worry I got you.

[00:02:24.51] Let's say we've got Johnny's bakery. And Johnny's bakery comes to you, and
Johnny's bakery says, hey, can you-- let me flip that, let's say Johnny comes to the bakery and
says, "Hey, can you make me a carrot cake." And I'm the baker. My Johnny, have you seen the
window? All I do is carrot cake, all day carrot cake. I'm a carrot cake machine. I'm a master at
carrot cake. Don't worry Johnny, I got you covered. I know the exact recipe. I know the exact
steps. I know the sequence of activities. I know the budget. I could tell you how much it's going
to cost. I can tell you when you can have it. I know everything about this project. OK, that's
good. That's unique. I like that.

[00:03:07.81] But what if Johnny comes to Tim's bakery and says, "Tim, can you make me short
ribs. What was that Johnny? Can you make me short ribs or barbecue? My Johnny, I'm a bakery,
I'm not a barbecue kind of person, right? But let me see, let's sit down. What's the project about?
What's the big idea? What's the goal? What are you trying to do? What's the business value?
We're trying to figure all these things out, just like we talked about.

[00:03:31.56] Now, what's unique between these two different projects? Think it through. On
one hand, I have a project presented to me that I know everything. I can tell you, I could make a
carrot cake in my sleep. I love carrot cake. I really do love carrot cake, if anybody wants to send
me a carrot cake, would love to have.

[00:03:49.65] But on this side, we've got barbecue. I love barbecue too, don't get me wrong, but
I've never done it. I don't have a big green egg. I can't. I don't know how to do the whole
smoking thing. Coal, charcoal, wood, what do you use? Cherry wood, what's the difference?

[00:04:07.91] So the projects have different uncertainty. One, I know everything to do. Things
are clear. The goal is clear. The solution is very clear. I know exactly how to do it. On the other
hand, I know the goal they want. Johnny wants short ribs. He wants a barbecue plate. But the
solution, I don't really know how to do that. It's unclear. So when I'm managing a project, I
would have to take different approaches for how I would run each project. A project that's very
clear, I would approach it differently than a project that's not clear. Does that make sense,
everybody?

[00:04:44.93] OK. So you can see how we delineate these projects. In project management, we
can actually put these projects into certain buckets, or quadrants, or categories. And this is a way
that as we take in tons and tons of projects, or offers, or whatever it may be, we can start to
categorize projects into like buckets.

[00:05:07.14] For example, every project is going to be slightly different. No two projects are
going to be the same. But we can start to categorize them based on things like, I really know how
to do this. Those projects would take on a different approach than a project I've never done that
before. I might take a different approach. These would be called methods. For a class called
Project Methodologies, kind of makes sense.

[00:05:30.51] So let's check this next graph out. This is called the project landscape. Let's take a
moment, sit back, absorb it. We got some green texts, some blue texts, some white text. I want
you to start thinking through this. Now, don't get too deep into the boxes.

[00:05:48.07] So for example, you might look at things like this and you're like, I don't even
know how to pronounce that. That looks like some kind of medication, like don't take emertxe if
you're seven weeks pregnant. Just bought a house, refinanced your mortgage, don't do-- like
you're probably a little confused about what emertxe is. And an extreme project, or agile, or
traditional, don't worry about what's in the boxes right now. We're going to go over that in this
class. What I really want you to focus on are these things like, goal and solution.

[00:06:18.36] Now as I just kind of talked about every project can fall into one of these four
quadrants, Q4, Q3, Q2, or Q1. Now the way we know which bucket to put a project in is based
on these attributes, or these access's, these points on the left, which would be a goal, or on the top
a solution.

[00:06:42.85] So let's go ahead and let's use an example of the carrot cake. So we have someone
that comes to us and they say, I want a carrot cake. I say, great. We talked about this, I really
know how to do a carrot cake. Now what's the goal? What does the client want? They want a
carrot cake. OK, so the goal is very clear. What about the solution? Well, I've made carrot cake
my whole life. It's clear. So I would run this project as a traditional project. Now you don't know
what that means yet, but we'll talk about that in a moment.

[00:07:14.68] Now what about the example of the barbecue. Well, I'm a baker, I don't really
know how to do barbecue. I couldn't make Mac and cheese if my life depended on it. I love Mac
and cheese, but I can't make it. So let's run that through the matrix here, this landscape. Well, is
the goal clear or not clear. Well, it's pretty clear. Johnny wants short ribs, he wants barbecue.

[00:07:37.41] All right. But what about the solution, do I know how to do it? Is it clear or is it
not clear. I've never barbecued. I don't know how to do it. I don't know the steps. So it's not clear.
So I would position this project as an agile project.

[00:07:51.45] Now, we'll talk about the differences between these projects in a moment later on
in this class. But what I want you to notice is that every project is different. Every project is
unique. You've probably done this in your classes, you can attest to this. Maybe in the
workplace, maybe if you work for GEE, or you work at a grocery store, maybe you're in a class
right now, or your fraternity, you've run a project, or your local community group, whatever it
may be, you've probably run projects and you've noticed it's a little different every time I run the
project.

[00:08:25.32] No two projects are the same. You could make a video game in semester one, and
make the exact same video game in semester two, and something changes. The internet goes out
in semester one or hurricane. Semester two, I'm a little faster. I'm a little smarter. I'm a little
better. I know how to avoid the pitfalls. Every time you take on a project, it's slightly different.
That can get really daunting.

[00:08:49.39] So what we do is we create this chart, this project landscape. And it allows project
managers to kind of get a handle on things. So for example, a traditional project. Let's just talk
through a traditional project for a moment. A traditional project right here, would be something
that is very linear. It goes from step A to step B to step C to step D, and then we're done. We've
built the carrot cake. We know all the steps. There's really nothing that could go wrong. And if it
does go wrong, we know how to fix it very easily. We've done it a million times, it's traditional.
[00:09:23.41] So any project that comes to you that falls in those categories of a clear goal, and a
clear solution, we use traditional project management methods or methodologies. Again, we'll
talk about what a traditional project methods and the steps are later in the class. But I'm just
showing you a general overview of this landscape.

[00:09:41.92] Now with the barbecue like we talked about, we don't know how to do it. So we
will need to take on an agile perspective. Agile means what? Agile means you need to be nimble.
You need to be flexible. You need to be able to change direction quickly. You need to pivot
really quickly. Kyrie Irving in basketball can shift his way. Steph Curry can shift his way quickly
and go from one direction to another and shake the defender, that's agile development.

[00:10:09.46] We need to be able to go in one direction. We don't really know what we're doing,
because we've never done it, the solution is not really clear. And when we realize, oh, this is the
wrong way, we need to pivot and go the other way. You all see where I'm going with this. More
uncertain projects need a different method.

[00:10:25.52] So for example, with agile projects, we might go from A to B, B to D, D to C, C to

F, and then F might go back to A. You see the volatility and the variability of this project,
because we really don't know the clear solution. We're trying to figure it out as we're doing the
project.

[00:10:48.34] Does that make sense? Time out. Maybe take a pause. If you need to rewind, go
ahead and rewind, check it out one more time, and see if these concepts are really solidifying
right in your mind. Because we're going to come back to this project landscape over and over
again, as we go deeper into what is a traditional project? What is an agile project? What is an
extreme project? And what is, and this one's weird, an emertxe project?

[00:11:15.01] And extra points, if anybody realize by the way, extreme and emertxe are just
reverse. Go ahead and just reverse the letters extreme and you get a emertxe. We'll talk about
why that is. And even starting to think about the project, this landscape, what would be a project
that I don't know the goal and the solution is not clear? That's a really crazy project. Pretty
extreme, right? So that's something to be thinking about as we move forward.

[00:11:46.52] So back to the landscape, let's just summarize everything we talked about. Every
project has a goal and a solution, very clear. So every project you come into is going to have a
goal and going to have a solution. Every project is going to be able to fit in one of these four
quadrants. So each quadrant, in which a project lies will provide an initial guideline, and this is a
weird acronym, PMLC.

[00:12:10.00] I know, first time we've ever seen this, but we will see this later. PMLC, you all,
this is called the project management lifecycle. Go ahead and pause, write this down, project
management lifecycle. What is a project management lifecycle? Let me go back a couple of
slides here, go forward, just so I'm jumping back on the screen with you. Project management
lifecycle is those steps I was talking about.
[00:12:36.43] A traditional project is very linear, we go from A to B, B to C, and C to D. Those
letters would be the life cycle of a project. The project starts today and it ends at E, let's just say.
And the project, because it's very traditional linear, we know what to do. It goes A, B, C, D, E.

[00:12:57.18] An agile project though that project management lifecycle from A to E could look
like this, A to B, B to C, C back to A, A to B, B to C, C to D, D to E, then we complete. You
may actually loop back on some steps. Those steps A, B, C, D, I'm just using as an example,
that's what we would call the project management lifecycle. Every project is going to have these
steps. And we're going to go into detail about those steps in future classes.

[00:13:26.98] So just wanted to give you a little context for this slide as I threw that out there
there's a curveball, PMLC, project management lifecycle. And then the next thing is the simplest
intuitive metric used is clear or not clear. Is the goal clear or is it not clear? Is the solution clear
or not clear.

[00:13:41.79] So I hope this little intro video on the project landscape helps you understand the
way we're classifying these projects, can fall into one of four quadrants. Just as a refresher, every
project is going to take on what? A goal and a solution. And that goal and solution is either going
to be what? Clear or unclear. Now based on those, we can to determine what quadrant or
methodology we're going to use to manage that project.

[00:14:08.16] All right, you all. I will see you in the next video. And we are going to break down
what a program and a portfolio are in the context of project management. All right, you all. Take
it easy, I'll see you soon.

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