What does a work assignment consist of? This must be the first question that arises at the start of a project. We will outline some terms of reference that are usually used to describe work; this does not mean that you should use all of them, but only the ones that you see fit:
- Name of reference: It may seem dumb at first glance, but the name of the reference should be well defined (that is, it must be meaningful). Do not write literary compositions.
- Owner of the reference: This is simpler, referring to who owns the project task. It is important that the owner is always just one person, no matter how many employees are assigned to the task (remember that one project's task can include more than one person, and it is recommended to have a maximum of two). Only one of them can be the owner of a project's task. But this again is relative—the owner of the project's task does not need to be part of the team that will carry out the terms of reference.
- Number of work tasks: There will be many people saying that this doesn't benefit the project. However, you will require some referencing here—if your project has hundreds of jobs, it will be quite hard to find a particular job when you need it. However, if the jobs are numbered, then this is easy. Most average software solutions have an automated assignment of numbers so that aspect does not need special attention. For those who prefer to use their tools, such as management tasks in Notepad, here is a little advice: do not assign numbers until you have completely organized all tasks. If you don't do this, you will have the tedious job of changing the sequence of numbers each time you change the WBS structure.
- Starting of the work task: This is the date of commencement of the work on the job. If you use the software, then the determination of the start of work on the job is quite a simple thing—the beginning is mainly determined by the previous work tasks (that is, their onset and the duration of the task). On the other hand, if there is parallelism or if tasks are independent of the previous tasks, then determining this at the beginning of the resource planning is an independent branch of the project.
- The duration of the assignment: The duration is a measure of time from the beginning of the assignment to its final execution. So, the difference between the duration and the effect of the assignment is the effect of the total time spent on the realization of the work task. For example, an employee may work only four hours a day and if the task takes 20 hours, this means that a total of five days are needed to complete the task. This is the effect of 20 hours, but the duration of the assignment is five days. A smart employer pays for the performance, and not the duration.
Who determines the duration and the effect of the assignment? Although it should be a rule that it is always determined by the employee who will carry out the task, this is not always the case. Project resources sometimes exaggerate and give very unreasonable time frames for the duration of individual tasks. For example, if a consultant provides an estimate of 10 days for a certain task, the Project Manager usually cannot assess if this estimate is accurate or not. Usually, consultants estimates include a buffers and tasks usually end as predicted in the project plan. Of course, an employee will try to make the duration of the terms of reference to be exactly as specified in the project plan. This dilemma outlines the question—who is more important, the project manager or the consultant? How much of the project does a professional project manager know about? Here, I am not talking about how the project will evolve but what the project will achieve in order to collect all this data.
To formalize tasks, we can use the following form:
You may notice some settings that have not been mentioned so far. This includes the following:
- Addictions: This area lists the work tasks (mostly just the WBS number) that are required to complete before the project manager can begin (or end, depending on the type of work task) the current working task. For example, before looking at testing products, you need to create test scenarios, determine the test users, create test documentation, and educate the users.
- Notes: Well, this is easy—here, it is possible to further describe the work task—from the name of the assignment it will be difficult to understand, and the intelligent readers (employees) have a rather thankless task, which is to forecast. So, it is better to describe in more detail what should be achieved by the actual working task. Sometimes, at work, we may need an additional category of more, where more notes can be added, like the beneficiaries. This will help us to learn what kind of functionality we want from the final product.
- Resources: A question that arises often is this: who will design the task? Sometimes, you are not able to immediately enter the exact name of the employee who will design a task, but it is possible to enter a position (for example—software developer), and subsequently determine the person. On the other hand, if you do not have a software tool that will help you deal with the distribution of resources, it is better to leave only one position and do not organize the staff until you have all the elements of project completion— this will be a challenge.
One of the fundamental errors made by project managers is having a lack of flexibility when it comes to a project plan. In this case, the project manager should not only be concerned about the project plan, but also the entire project structure, which includes compiling a list of tasks. In fact, everything in the project may change, including the amount of work, the duration and the scope. Here, the only question is whether it is possible to deal with changes in a controlled manner. As the project unfolds, it will change and the project will therefore proceed faster or become delayed, and we will need more or fewer resources for different tasks. This is quite normal—just take some time to consider how to deal with the changes.
So, if a change occurs (for example—the duration of the task is to increase from two to three days, which is quite wrong), consider risk management, which should address the issues of poor planning.
Poor planning arises because of a lack of information that is needed when planning tasks. What we have is less information available, bad planning of tasks, and unclear parameters with regards to the scope, time, and resources. Do we have a problem with a lack of information? This assignment should be noted as a risk in the risks table, which is an integral part of risk management (you can read more about this in the respective chapter).