Entrepreneurship and project management: the missing link

Much emphasis has been placed on entrepreneurship and the need for more and more entrepreneurs in the region to help create jobs for the future of the region. There is also a lot of enthusiasm and encouragement for new entrepreneurs, but are we forgetting something? It’s great to have the “spirit”, but is the spirit enough? Do our prospective entrepreneurs know how to take your dreams from idea to effective operation? Is business planning overemphasized or is it enough? This article will offer an opinion and try to answer these questions and offer a suggestion on what is missing. In the author’s opinion, project management is the missing link that could make the crucial difference between success, challenge, and even failure.

The need for entrepreneurs

Various sources and global studies show that small and medium-sized organizations / enterprises (SMO / SME) have enormous contributions to economies around the world in terms of gross national product and employment. Studies in the Middle East show that the contributions of SMEs in our region are lower than those of developed countries. However, many government and private sector leaders recognize the need to change this to meet the tremendous challenge of job creation needs throughout the Arab world.

All private or government initiatives share the role of promoting “entrepreneurship”, but is spirit all we need? What’s missing? Let’s say someone quit their job to become an entrepreneur, then what?

There are too many challenges that an entrepreneur faces today, some of them are the legal structure and regulations. Other challenges are related to the fear of failure and the stigma associated with it. Even if we overcome the fear of failure, we will meet the challenge of the availability of capital. With the capital resolved or at least somewhat resolved, do we have the right infrastructure to help the entrepreneur launch the business? Do we have the necessary support? How about beyond launch? The support that is available (business / cash / logistics / administration / etc) is available to someone who follows a dream, but only to realize that realizing the dream is much more challenging than expected. How do we help the entrepreneur or small business owner stay and grow?

Business planning

Most, if not all, venture capital, foundations, and other funding sources, in addition to business schools and MBA programs, focus on a business plan as an essential deliverable / requirement for fundraising or startup. a business. Here we ask ourselves once again: Is the business plan enough? In our opinion, a “traditional” business plan is not enough. Many business plans, which we call “traditional”, focus on the business aspects with a stronger focus on the operation of the business. The question is: Do these traditional business plans provide an appropriate focus on the business (most call it a “project”) from idea to business launch?

The missing link

It is interesting to note that many call a new company a “project”, as we mentioned in the previous section. We like the word “project”, but most definitions of the word “project” mean something that is temporary. So is the company temporary? We hope not! So is the word ‘project’ wrong to use? Yes and No. The business is not a project; it is a business, a company. So, to be academic, the word “project” is not the right word for the new business. Let’s call it a company or a company. However, launching the business is exactly what we call a project: the launch project is taking the company from idea to operations. Our goal here is not to get into an English lesson; Rather, our goal is to define the proper use of words to have the proper context and fully understand the missing link. So what is this missing link? Well, if launching the business is a project, how do we manage it? Where is project management in release management? The next section will provide a methodology to follow to launch the business.

A proposed sequence

Our proposed model will focus on launching the company from idea to initial operation, using the missing link: Project Management. Future articles could focus on using organizational project management to help build and maintain a small business and grow it.

The proposed model, which is derived from the Customizable and Adaptable Methodology for Project Management ™, is a project duration model that divides the project duration into three distinct phases; that we explain here.

Business concept

The business concept is a crucial phase of the project that spans a period from the idea of ​​the company to the initial decision to go ahead and cover a feasibility study. The idea owner is likely to be the entrepreneur who has an idea for a business that could be a passion, an income opportunity, fulfilling a need, solving a problem, among other business drivers.

This is the time to dream, but you have to be careful that the dream is realistic and achievable. It is very risky for someone to launch a new company without a proper understanding of the challenges and opportunities, although it could be argued in rare cases that spontaneous action could also result in a good profit.

Therefore, the entrepreneur (to be a small business owner) has to study the viability of his idea, and for this we think that the existing business planning techniques are very important to use at this stage. However, in addition to the focus on finance, competition, market demand, operation, and other factors, the entrepreneur must also think about project management, including proper planning of project management. Suitable project

Management planning includes understanding the stakeholders and their expectations and requirements, setting realistic time and cost targets, a fair understanding of the project and company risks (threats and opportunities), and other factors.

Business concept development

The previous phase emphasizes the feasibility study and the business planning requirement. With the basics of the business in place, project management will become more important and the entrepreneur will become a project manager.

So what do we do now? The project manager / entrepreneur needs to think and act according to two aspects, two sides of the same coin. On the one hand, you need to think about the project from the idea to the initial operations, but you cannot ignore the completion of the subsequent project, which would be to lead and sustain the business (operations).

For the project aspect, the project manager should set out all the requirements in detail for the business launch, including the definition of the success factors, the schedule, the required resources, the licenses, the legal, financial / financial requirements and the alternatives, the regulations, the budget. for the launch, schedule, communication with stakeholders, acquisition strategy, as well as risk identification, evaluation and management. All these activities are focused on planning to take us from the idea to the completion of the project, but mainly to produce a detailed plan that provides us with the necessary information to make the final decision on whether to continue with the venture or not. This detailed plan is widely used in the next phase.

For business aspects, the project manager should begin planning preparation for operation; which means identifying all the necessary things once the business is up and running; such as financial control, human resources, policies, operational processes, as well as marketing and business development. If the business is not for profit, it would still require most of these activities, but it may be with the addition of volunteer needs and volunteer management or the need for sponsors.

Project delivery (business launch)

With a plan for the project and a plan for operational readiness, it is time to begin implementing the project leading to initial operations. In this phase we implement the activities that we identify in the detailed plan. For example, in the plan that we specify we need a permit, then it is time to carry out the activities necessary to obtain the permit. In the plan we define the need for a marketing plan, it is time to define the marketing plan and develop the necessary collateral, whether in print or online.

Therefore, the main purpose of Project Delivery is to perform all the activities necessary to produce the required deliverables that would be critical to the successful launch of the new business and start the initial operations.

Throughout this document we discuss “initial operations” and “operations” as two independent terms and this is intentional. We use initial operations to define the period of time that begins with the opening of our doors as a business or non-profit organization. We call this initial operations because, as we begin to offer services, we can recognize that the forms need to be adjusted, some documents may be missing something, among other things that might not turn out as well as we had planned.

Therefore, the initial operations will allow us to make the necessary improvements before entering into regular and stable operations. In some situations, we could remove initial operations and go straight to normal operations. In other scenarios, we could have a “soft start” as the initial operations period, which we could also call a pilot period / test period. Which approach to take, it all depends on the nature of the business and whether it allows a trial / initial operations period or not.