Project Canvas: How To Visualize Your Project

Every beginning is complex, and especially in project management, the wealth of data is, in many cases, why groups need assistance tracking down a proficient origin. Nonetheless, correspondence runs predictably with an outline imagining every one of the fundamental realities. Shade up for Project Canvas.

Here you will gain proficiency with the administrative apparatus task and how to make your finished material. The upside of a material is that mind-boggling tasks can be separated into building blocks. This makes it conceivable to give the whole association, patrons, or partners a speedy knowledge of the project.

Areas Of Application Of The Project Canvas

With a project canvas, small and large projects can be framed. Getting ready for such an undertaking further develops correspondence inside the venture group. Thus, Project Canvas is mainly used for the kickoff – i.e., the start of a project. However, structured visualization can also be used in more advanced phases of project management. When you create a Project Canvas largely depends on what purpose you are pursuing:

1. Project start: Use the canvas toward the beginning of the venture to help correspondence in the group and to check whether everybody in question has a similar degree of information.
2. During the project: Use the Project Canvas to evaluate progress and survey whether the undertaking brings the ideal advantage after the inception.
3. End of project: Use the canvas at the end to highlight the potential for optimization and examine your project for possible weaknesses.

The Five Premises Of Every Project Canvas

To ensure that your Project Canvas fulfills the desired purpose and contributes to project management beneficially, you should note the following five characteristics :

1. Use neutral, meaningful language so everyone involved has the same knowledge about the project.
2. Use the symbolic presentation to make the Project Canvas visualization more tangible. For example, describe the project as a journey into a new adventure.
3. Make the sketch as simple as possible – avoid unimportant details and overloaded elements.
4. Understand Project Canvas as an open approach that can be combined with any other project management method.
5. Nevertheless, keep an eye on the most critical standards of project management, including PMBOK® Guide (PMI), PRINCE2® (AXELOS), PM3 (GPM), DIN 69901, and ISO 21500. The structure of Project Canvas is based on these standards.

Use these premises as practical tips to achieve maximum efficiency with project visualization.

Structure: The Project Building Blocks Of The Project Canvas

Regardless of whether you create the Project Canvas as a PowerPoint, on a flipchart or whiteboard, or with an online tool. The essential thing is that it’s a one-pager. This means that all information is displayed on a single page. The overview is divided into at least eleven different project modules. In addition to the building blocks of time and purpose, they are divided into input, transformation, and output factors :

1. Time: The project’s start and end dates are recorded here to create a time frame.
2. Purpose: This module sets out the project’s objective and is a central element.

Input Factors

1. Budget: Define clear financial resources that fit the project and your budget.
2. Team: Who is on the core team, and who is on the extended team? Divide the project module into the two sub-areas to clearly define the responsibilities.
3. Resources: This project module can sometimes be very extensive, which is why it makes sense to divide it into several elements depending on the size of the project. Typical resources for project management are work equipment, office space, external service providers, and software tools.

Transformation Factors

1. Environment: This project module can be broken down into sub-areas if required. It includes the sum of all environmental conditions affecting the project. These include economic, legal, social, political, financial, technological, organizational, and ecological factors.
2. Milestones: With milestones, you define intermediate stages. This allows you to set time and content-related goals that can be recorded on a timeline.
3. Risks and Opportunities: To weigh up the project’s success, it is essential to define potential opportunities and threats. This makes it possible for the team management to initiate defensive measures early and create optimal conditions.

Output Factors

1. Quality: This project module can be divided into two elements: on the one hand, the project quality (how well did the process go, how well is the work done?) and on the other hand, the product quality (does the resulting product meet all the requirements?).
2. Result: Should the project result in a new product, an idea, or a process change? Define a clear outcome of project work to evaluate success.
3. Customer: Who is the project’s owner, stakeholder, or sponsor?

Advantages And Disadvantages At A Glance

Here are all the advantages and disadvantages of the method at a glance:

Advantages

1. The Project Canvas offers a 360-degree perspective on the venture’s substance, hierarchical, and asset-related factors.
2. Colleagues get a similar degree of information and hence impart at eye level.
3. Time and object are the focal points of the venture for the executives.
4. The limitation to a one-pager view forestalls losing all sense of direction in subtleties.
5. The strategy can be utilized for all ventures and regions.
6. The material can be connected to any project the board strategy and, in this way, additionally upholds deft methodologies.

Disadvantages

1. The Project Canvas does not replace conventional project management methods but only serves as a supplement.
2. The limited representation does not allow detailed planning.
3. Depending on the industry, more than the primary project building blocks is needed, so project teams have to create their matrix.

Also Read: Business Model Canvas: What It Is, How To Compile And Use It