MASARYK UNIVERSITY BRNO FACULTY OF INFORMATICS Life Project MASTER’S THESIS Bc. et Bc. Michael Mládek Brno, 2013 Declaration I declare that this Master’s thesis is my original work and that I have written it independently. All sources and literature that I have used during elaboration of the thesis are correctly cited with complete reference to the corresponding sources. Supervisor: doc. RNDr. Tomáš Pitner, Ph.D. Acknowledgement I would like to thank my supervisor for his sponsorship and support. Abstract Humans in developed and emerging parts of our world are facing more and more complex environment of opportunities and responsibilities, challenging their strengths and weaknesses, traits and habits, many of them dealing with an extensive portfolio of smaller or larger personal projects. High school students, and even more extensively university students and knowledge workers, as well as people having various hobbies and interests are often dealing with many projects, tasks and demands, and – as one of the self-development coaches put it – facing a culture of More-Bigger-Faster (Schwartz, 2010). This thesis provides insight into a spectrum of project management tools and combines them with disciplines relating to self-management. Presented tools and techniques are applicable for an individual facing a complex of challenges when managing his projects. A modern approach to project planning using mind maps and a design of an application Life Project are be proposed. The application shall provide its users with chosen tools and techniques for planning, attention focusing, tracking and monitoring their activities, as well as possibility to reflect on their performance. Keywords education, knowledge work, life project, personal project, personal project management, project management, performance, self-development, self- management, time management, time tracking Table of Contents 1 Introduction ................................................................................................................... 8 1.1 Objectives ............................................................................................................... 8 1.2 Chapter Overview ................................................................................................. 9 2 Personal Project Management ................................................................................... 10 2.1 Projects, Programs and Portfolios ..................................................................... 10 2.1.1 The Personal Project .................................................................................... 10 2.1.2 The Personal Program ................................................................................ 11 2.1.3 The Personal Portfolio ................................................................................ 12 2.1.4 Selecting Projects ......................................................................................... 14 2.1.5 The Stakeholders ......................................................................................... 16 2.1.6 Managing Resources ................................................................................... 17 2.2 Planning Projects ................................................................................................. 17 2.2.1 Project Charter ............................................................................................. 17 2.2.2 Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) ........................................................... 18 2.2.3 Scheduling .................................................................................................... 18 2.2.4 Reducing Risks ............................................................................................ 24 2.2.5 Whole-Brain Project Planning ................................................................... 25 2.3 Executing Projects ............................................................................................... 30 2.4 Monitoring and Controlling Projects ................................................................ 31 2.5 Closing Projects ................................................................................................... 38 2.6 Self-management and Personal Projects .......................................................... 38 2.7 New Approach to (Personal) Project Management ........................................ 39 3 The Life Project Design ............................................................................................... 45 3.1 Project Management Elements .......................................................................... 45 3.1.1 Basic Shapes ................................................................................................. 49 3.1.2 Actions, Events & Sequences ..................................................................... 49 3.1.3 Artifacts ........................................................................................................ 50 3.1.4 Surrounding of Nodes ................................................................................ 55 3.1.5 Project Documents ...................................................................................... 57 3.2 Tools in the Life Project ...................................................................................... 58 3.2.1 Project Mind Map ........................................................................................ 58 3.2.2 Activity Log .................................................................................................. 60 3.2.3 Focus Window ............................................................................................. 61 3.2.4 Timeline ........................................................................................................ 62 3.2.5 Counter ......................................................................................................... 63 3.2.6 Decision Booster .......................................................................................... 63 3.2.7 Other Managerial Tools .............................................................................. 64 3.3 Future Developments ......................................................................................... 64 4 Conclusion .................................................................................................................... 66 5 Table of Figures ........................................................................................................... 67 6 Bibliography ................................................................................................................. 69 7 Used Software .............................................................................................................. 73 Annexes .................................................................................................................................. 8 1 Introduction Life Project 1 Introduction Approaches to self-improvement by setting up goals and acting towards achieving them have been developed and in recent years popularized by many authors of leadership and self-management literature, teaching their followers how to manage their lives i.e. set up personal goals and act towards achieving them. Successfully manage one’s life in a complex environment of today’s world, where people are choosing from tremendous amounts of opportunities, as well as facing high demands and various pressures from other actors and cultural factors in society, is not an easy task. Many hypotheses in the field of self-management are being practically tested by thousands at a time, we know a lot about self-development, goals setting, planning, coaching, attention focusing, decision making, stress- management, and so on. Still, the individuals in developed world seem to struggle with a control of their performance. While advances in information and communication technology enter nearly every aspect of human lives, new possibilities to improve or develop new tools to help individuals manage their tasks in complex environment, as well as to manage long- term projects, are being uncovered. 1.1 Objectives One of the ways is to build an integrated system supporting its users to focus their effort towards their educational, career and personal goals. Hence the goal of this thesis is to propose a design of an integrated application – the Life Project – incorporating current knowledge and the best practices related to self-management. This goal is divided into the following objectives: 1. To analyze and select appropriate tools and techniques from project management. 2. To summarize information from disciplines related to self-management. 3. To propose a design of an interactive system incorporating selected tools and techniques. 8 1 Introduction Life Project 1.2 Chapter Overview Chapter 1: Introduction This chapter contains goals and structure of the work. Chapter 2: Personal Project Management The second chapter is devoted to project management concepts, tools and techniques applicable for personal projects of individuals. Areas of self- management are briefly introduced. I present my view of a new approach to project management using mind maps, and demonstrate this approach on several case studies. Chapter 3: The Life Project Design In the third chapter, a Life Project story is presented. It is rather a “story” outline of the application that a full featured design of an application ready for coding. Proposal on future direction of the Life Project