So what happened if you eat an elephant in the dark?
Hmmmm probably you ate more than you can chew.
Eating elephant in the dark is like managing a project without knowing how big the scope is hence you never think of getting help (resources) nor know how long are you going to keep chewing. This of course under the assumption the scope only have size as the challenges sometimes scope can shift which create another problem the elephant goes around and you are chewing air (scope shift).
Can you imagine eating an elephant while it's running you may get an air bite (non added value task, running ramp without a clear focus), or even worst got trampled by one (a disaster)!
So what to do?
Define the scope, scope can creep and it always does so make sure you have buffer of resources and time. Shed some lights to the room, ask around find the edge of the room hence you know how far can the elephant goes. It can start from having a flash light once you get more requirements the uncharted room becomes less complex, open the window to get more sun coming in (but please not let the elephant jump out the window). Aaah finally you can see the elephant how big the size is and what color does he have, it is a pink cute elephant (you would not expect that would you?)
Make a project charter this is sort of the killing action , yup it is quite scary indeed and it has to be done because a cute pink elephant will run around in the bright room and it would be difficult to pin him down, right? So a project charter define and describe what we are after and what is the outcome. When you get a vivid enough outcome - SMART goal. We then smack the head of the elephant to put it unconcious (please mind this is all methaporically speaking no animal was hurt in the event)
When you see a pink elephant you would then know that it would be stupid to attempt to chow down such big size of meat. This is where we need to break the task into small bite size from there we can then decide whether we want to increase the resources or to extend the time.
Define the resources, now you know how big it is, time to call friends to have a party and have a splendid feast. So you start calculating if within one seating you can eat 300g of meat, and this elephant weigh at 3 tons, you probably need 10.000 people to come. Or you split the party into numerous events which lead to longer completion with less people. It can be done through this as well. When you go to your facebook you realize you only have 1000 friends hence you may not be able to complete this with one party hence you can define the time.
Define the time, now you know how many friends you have, time to break them into a certain spand of time. Like my friend always says "anything is possible with time and money" and there is a truth to it.
So now we just calculate the amount of time needed, if you only have 1000 friends that means you need to throw 10 rounds of parties that is a lot of event isn't it. And always always have buffers, it is known that not all of the time our resources can come to the party and sometimes party can have malfunctions this is where Risk Assessment comes. For this example let's just say 500 (50%) friends come at all parties as average and 20% malfunction parties from there you can then calculate how many more parties you need. So the buffer becomes 10 parties X 200 % (for the people) = 20 parties with 20% possibility of malfunction we bump it up to 24 parties.
If every parties has 2 weeks gap that means you will need 48 weeks to accomplish this.
Than goes to Gantt Chart to map out the project plan!
So can you eat an elephant? The answer is "yes,you can!" - within less than a year we would end up with couple of bones only!
Hmmmm probably you ate more than you can chew.
Eating elephant in the dark is like managing a project without knowing how big the scope is hence you never think of getting help (resources) nor know how long are you going to keep chewing. This of course under the assumption the scope only have size as the challenges sometimes scope can shift which create another problem the elephant goes around and you are chewing air (scope shift).
Can you imagine eating an elephant while it's running you may get an air bite (non added value task, running ramp without a clear focus), or even worst got trampled by one (a disaster)!
So what to do?
Define the scope, scope can creep and it always does so make sure you have buffer of resources and time. Shed some lights to the room, ask around find the edge of the room hence you know how far can the elephant goes. It can start from having a flash light once you get more requirements the uncharted room becomes less complex, open the window to get more sun coming in (but please not let the elephant jump out the window). Aaah finally you can see the elephant how big the size is and what color does he have, it is a pink cute elephant (you would not expect that would you?)
Make a project charter this is sort of the killing action , yup it is quite scary indeed and it has to be done because a cute pink elephant will run around in the bright room and it would be difficult to pin him down, right? So a project charter define and describe what we are after and what is the outcome. When you get a vivid enough outcome - SMART goal. We then smack the head of the elephant to put it unconcious (please mind this is all methaporically speaking no animal was hurt in the event)
When you see a pink elephant you would then know that it would be stupid to attempt to chow down such big size of meat. This is where we need to break the task into small bite size from there we can then decide whether we want to increase the resources or to extend the time.
Define the resources, now you know how big it is, time to call friends to have a party and have a splendid feast. So you start calculating if within one seating you can eat 300g of meat, and this elephant weigh at 3 tons, you probably need 10.000 people to come. Or you split the party into numerous events which lead to longer completion with less people. It can be done through this as well. When you go to your facebook you realize you only have 1000 friends hence you may not be able to complete this with one party hence you can define the time.
Define the time, now you know how many friends you have, time to break them into a certain spand of time. Like my friend always says "anything is possible with time and money" and there is a truth to it.
So now we just calculate the amount of time needed, if you only have 1000 friends that means you need to throw 10 rounds of parties that is a lot of event isn't it. And always always have buffers, it is known that not all of the time our resources can come to the party and sometimes party can have malfunctions this is where Risk Assessment comes. For this example let's just say 500 (50%) friends come at all parties as average and 20% malfunction parties from there you can then calculate how many more parties you need. So the buffer becomes 10 parties X 200 % (for the people) = 20 parties with 20% possibility of malfunction we bump it up to 24 parties.
If every parties has 2 weeks gap that means you will need 48 weeks to accomplish this.
Than goes to Gantt Chart to map out the project plan!
So can you eat an elephant? The answer is "yes,you can!" - within less than a year we would end up with couple of bones only!
