Upstream: Habits → Goals → Areas → Roles → Mission
Projects, as defined by David Allen, are “any desired result that requires more than one action step.” The Natural Planning Method is his planning model of choice. It is based on how we naturally process information in our daily lives. There are five steps in the Natural Planning Method:
1. Define Purpose & Principles: To start out creating a project, you should always ask yourself “why” you want to do the project. This will define the purpose of the project. It will guide your thinking and actions throughout the duration of the project. A lot of people get caught up in the actions associated with their projects and forget why they are doing them. A clear purpose will aid in bringing the focus back to why you are doing what you are doing, as well as helping you when you are stuck at determining your NA for the project. Your principles will also help guide you through the project. They will set the standards you are seeking for successful completion of the project. These standards can be applied to projects that you alone are working on, or if there are others that are working with you, they can see what is expected of them from you, as the project leader.
2. Set Outcome: The next step is to think about what the outcome of a successful project looks like. In this step, you want to ask the question ‘what’. For example: ‘What will our network look like after we transition from Novell to Windows?’ as an example from my life. This vision will focus your attention to trying to attain the most successful outcome for the project that you can. One thing that Allen stresses is the notion of creating clear outcomes. We need to constantly review our steps to get our projects done efficiently. If needed, we should reallocate resources as necessary to get the project done.
3. Brainstorm Ideas: Brainstorming is basically dumping all thoughts about a project into a capture device regardless of anything. After you brainstorm, then you go back and weed out ideas that are not feasible, for any reason. Make sure you do not start to evaluate any of the ideas - that will take place during the next phase of the process. You want to just empty your head of ideas for the project you are brainstorming about.
4. Organise Priorities: While you are going through your thoughts from your brainstorming session you will see things start to fall into place. Priorities will emerge, as will the sequence of events for the project.
5. Create Next Actions: The last step is to create ****a series of next actions that need to be fulfilled to complete the project. When you have a list of next actions that are not dependent on any other action, you can consider your project fully planned out. Place all of the NA's into appropriate lists and when one is finished, you move the next NA to the appropriate list.