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For the past two weeks, I’ve discussed the project of changing a habit, based on the ideas presented by Charles Duhigg in his book The Power of Habit.

In this final post on the project, I want to discuss the two aspects of project management that can help you improve the chances of success of your project.   The first one is one I already discussed in the last post, namely, the concept of stakeholders.   Stakeholders are people who can influence a project positively or negatively.   You want to get your family and friends to support you and encourage you in your project; in other words, you want them to become stakeholders.    In a company, if what you do in your project will impact a certain department, they will be a stakeholder in your project.   If they have any objections that your project will negatively impact their department, it will be important for you to listen.   If you don’t, they will resist implementing your project in your department.

Another way to improve the chances of success on your project is to pay attention to risks.   In the language of the Project Management Institute (PMI), a risk is a factor which may influence a project either positively or negatively.    The word “risks” therefore covers both negative influences (what we normally call risks) and positive ones (what we normally call “opportunities”).  You notice the similarity to the concept of stakeholders?    Like stakeholders, risks can influence a project positively or negatively.   However, unlike people whom you can reason with (at least MOST of the time), risks can only be managed.   For example, if you have a project of starting a habit of jogging outside and there is a possibility of rain, there’s really nothing you can do to reduce that possibility.   However, you can reduce the impact of the rain on your jogging by simply taking a windbreaker or rain poncho.

A good project management will try to gain stakeholders that support the project, and prepare ahead of time for risks that may effect the project.    The concepts of risk management and stakeholder management are important ones in project management, and they each have a chapter all to themselves in the Project Management Body of Knowledge.

Tomorrow will start a new chapter in the Chicago’s Rollout broadcast.   We will be starting the cycle of four programs for the month of March, starting with the first topic of business.   We will discuss how to view yourself in a new way:   by considering yourself as if you were a business.   We will also be starting a call-in segment for our show.

I will have one more post on the book The Power of Habit, and then starting on Saturday, I will have posts on a new book, The Financial Diet by Chelsea Fagan.   It is a book I discovered, along with The Power of Habit, on the Mentor Box site of which I am a member.   It taks about personal finance, and is a great book to follow The Power of Habit, because it deals with getting rid of bad financial habits and starting some good new ones.   I look forward to tomorrow’s program!

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