One Thing At A Time: Bounded Projects

A Peaceful Border / Bridge…

If you want to grow your business (or any project), you need to focus. One thing at a time.

Finding that one thing is one of the first priorities when I engage with a client as a freelancer. There are often many things rattling around in their to-do list, and if I try to do all of them, none of them will get done. The first step, then, is to make a concrete list.

But even that list has pitfalls, since many of the elements of the list are tied to each other. So you need to go a little bit deeper.

I have been discussing Business Analysis for business owners. As a freelancer, I look for projects where the client has done their homework and come up with a single project rather than an amorphous set of problems.

Now, an amorphous set of problems can be quite lucrative for a consultant, but if you are the owner of the problems, you want to do as much as you can to limit your payments to the consultant.

So, how do we come up with a project with a clear boundary?

First, identify the actors in the business. One way of separating processes is by who is involved.

Second, find the data flows through the business. A single bit of data can be transferred all through the different parts of the business before its process is complete.

Third, follow the money — see where payments go in, and work backwards through where that money is spent.

But for the purpose of finding boundaries, perhaps the most useful tool is language.

How do people talk in your business? What are the dialects within processes? Where does translation need to occur?

A Boundary might be explained as a place where systems and people have to translate from one set of stories/metaphors/dialects into another.

Within the Boundary, everyone understands what you are talking about when you say customer, order, SKU, item, deadline, whatever. Outside that boundary, there might be some confusion, so you have to clarify your meaning.

Within the Boundary, success is very clear — conquering a problem or finishing a project or closing a deal (whatever your language is) can be celebrated without explanations. Outside the boundary, the celebration might have to be muted, because that success might not matter so much to the residents of that other neighbourhood.

Within the Boundary, you can find a shared metaphor, or story, that explains the struggle you are facing. Outside the boundary, the metaphor gets you puzzled looks or awkward pauses, but inside, you get ‘Aha’ and understanding.

Connecting to another neighbourhood across a boundary is like building a bridge across a river. It’s necessary and it touches both neighbourhoods, but it is part of the interface between them, not really a part of them. Projects that Connect are a different breed than projects within a Boundary. Mixing the two is adding complexity.

So here’s a simple way to save yourself a headache: divide your project by Boundaries. You can build a bigger project by creating individual sub-projects within each Boundary, and then creating Connector projects whose only role is to connect two neighbourhoods.

The result: the people working on the Inside Project will have to learn only one Language to succeed. The people who know how to build bridges will find those Connector projects and be comfortable in their role. And you will reduce your complexity, and save time and money.

Does this metaphor help? Give me a hand tightening it up in the comments.

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