Volunteers Build the Best Projects
Antonio Nieto-Rodriguez, an expert in project management and Fellow of the Project Management Institute (PMI), provides a simple signal for doing a project: Volunteers.
Alison Beard asks Antonio how should companies prioritize when there are many projects?
ANTONIO NIETO-RODRIGUEZ: It’s so simple, because there’s different things that happen here. First, if nobody wants to volunteer in that project, that project is terrible. Don’t start it. Don’t start it because it’s just, people are going to be forced to do it, so ask for volunteers. Nobody shows up, don’t start it. You don’t need a business case of three months hiring consultants to make you, “Yes, this is…” If nobody jumps on it, terrible. Don’t even start it. It’s just a five minutes test and you save three months of work.
Emphasis is mine. Excerpt from the “The Future of Work is Projects - So You’ve Got to Get Them Right” podcast from November 2021.