Large Projects in Nirvana and how to split them up?
Shaffe43
via web
I have read a good bit about projects and sub projects and the fact that the nirvana staff is going to implement them eventually, but I guess I am looking for the best way to do things now.
I have several projects that are very large IE Build House, Build Barn, Build Hotel
Each one of these projects could take up a year to do and have hundreds of smaller deliverables and thousands of next actions
What is the best way to set these projects up in Nirvana?
I am currently leaning towards using Areas for each High Level project, since you can assign a project 2 areas at the same time.
I would do it like this:
Area - Build House1
Area - Work
Project - Get all input from the customers
NA - Setup Meeting
NA - Go to site to get an idea of the layout
ETC
then once that project was complete i could just have another project setup and ready to go for the next step in the process. I could also be working on more than 1 project at once.
Doing it this way I could search for all projects relating to the Area of Build House1 or the Area of Work, which would include each item that I am currently Building.
I would still use the contexts to help me know when / where to do the Next Actions themselves.
How does this sound? I am fairly new to GTD and Nirvana both so I may be way off base.
Thanks for your help all!
Support Staff 2 Posted by David McLaughlin on 07 Feb, 2012 10:06 PM
Personally, at this point, I would tend to go with the separate Area of Focus for a project as large as building a house, etc. -- where you would have the expectation of numerous projects within that AoF -- design, land prep, HVAC, etc.
Another approach I've hear used is basically to have a project of projects where each task within the 'master' project was another project (with standalone tasks of course allowed) that would be hidden (Someday) until it came to the point of moving it to Next -- kind of a poor substitute for nested projects, but workable.
David
3 Posted by Matthew Shaffer on 07 Feb, 2012 11:05 PM
Thanks for all of your help / replies on this. I have started implementing
the Areas for now and it seems to be moving along well.
I will change over once Sub Projects are implemented, but for now this is
good enough.
Thanks!!
4 Posted by candeshouse on 08 Feb, 2012 01:16 PM
Thanks for this!! I have been running into the same problem and was starting to look around in an attempt to at least handle some of my programs. (And David, I do NOT say that at a not-so-indirect way of putting pressure on your team...I think you guys do great work and understand the challenges of where you are at.) I was just in dire need of something to break up my seemingly unending list of projects/sub-projects I have at work, and I think this will work!