 Okay, the recording is going to start soon. Okay, recording has just started. Welcome everyone to the class today on Church and Administration. Let's take a moment just to pray together and then we will proceed. All right, Dharo, why don't you please pray with us together? Loving Lord, thank you for this wonderful morning, Lord. Thank you for me just coming to your presence with your hands of protection upon us. Father God, I just submit this paper pastor. I pray for all the people who join the Lord Jesus. Father God, you mold us into good professionals, into good leaders. Father God, we submit this entire class into your mighty hands. We praise you all Lord Jesus. Amen. Thank you. Good morning and welcome everyone once again to this class. I'm just going to quickly review what we did last, sorry, on Wednesday. So this week we are talking about project management, more of executing, planning, execution and coordination. I'll just quickly review and then we will go forward today in what we are going to cover. So what we said is a lot of things in the church and ministry involves this whole thing, area of project, what we call as project management. It involves planning, execution, coordination. So whether we are running different areas of our ministries or we're doing conferences, mission trips, projects, other events, so many, so many things happen within the church context or Christian ministry context and it is basically, if you look at it, it's basically running projects. It has a start, has a finish. There's certain objectives you want to do or accomplish and you can run it as a project. But of course, these things require a lot of planning and so then we looked at it from a biblical perspective saying, you know, there are people who are not too comfortable in planning but actually the Bible does teach us, you know, to plan, to think ahead, to acquire knowledge and to act wisely. Now what the Bible tells us is not to be worried about future in Matthew 6 and not to be self-dependent but to depend on God and with that in mind we can definitely plan. Then we just introduced this whole idea of projects that all of these things that we're trying to do can actually be run as projects and in a project we generally, this is just a general project life cycle, there's initiating a project, planning, executing, monitoring and closing it out, bringing it to a close. Then we also talked about you know what goes into making sure that these projects are successful. We mentioned about having a clearly defined objective, a practical timeline, good leadership, good team, right skills, committed people. It's got to be constant feedback. We've got to be able to resolve problems and we have to finish well. So we just kind of gave in through this introduction. What I want to do today in the class is go through these five stages of a project life cycle. That means whatever we want to do, you know, you want to run a conference, you want to do mission trips, you want to do projects, you know, do a special project, you have so many things. We go through this cycle over and over and over again. Now, so we will, we want to talk about what happens in each of these stages as you plan to execute something, right? So that's the notes that I've just put out and now there is this whole field of project management which is a very vast area of study. People do entire courses on project management or maybe even get certificates or degrees in project management and so on. So it's a very, very detailed tarot area of study. A lot of big books are available and there are all, you know, there are a lot of tools and resources and techniques on all these things which is not what we are going to get into on this course but what I want to do is just give us an idea like in these five stages, these are the things you should be doing so that as a church or as a ministry when you are running different conferences or ministries or programs or, you know, events or outreaches, so you know, you have an idea like, okay, this is what I must be doing to make sure that this thing comes out well, right? So that's my objective, that's our objective in what we're doing and what you should be doing in each of these five stages. That's the goal, right? So we're not getting it all the details of it, of project management but we're getting an overview of what happens in each of these five stages which will be useful, practical for us as we plan things. So stage one is initiating, that means you're getting ready to run a project, you're getting ready to, let's say you want to prepare for a conference or you want to create a website for your ministry or you want to, you know, do a project that will feed a certain group in a certain place, you know, okay, you're doing a project. So whatever it is, there's stage one which is initiating or starting of the project and in this stage you have the project plan, basically what are the objectives, what do you want to achieve? We need to feed a thousand people for three months or we need to get a website done for our organization, okay, that's your objective or we need to start a ministry that reaches, you know, young people, you know, you know, whatever, that's over the next two years project. So objectives and then project timeline, that means we want to do it in this time, okay, we need to have a website ready in the next three months or, you know, we need to feed the people there, thousand people for three months, you know, so there's a timeline, that means you're going to do it over a certain time. You also need to have a budget and people, that means budget means, okay, we can spend so much money on this thing, right, so to do the website we can spend a hundred thousand rupees or to feed it a thousand people, we have been given, you know, so much money, maybe 10 lakh rupees that we can spend or that's one million rupees that we can spend over three months, so there's an amount of money that's available or money that's required that you can estimate and then the people, okay, these other people are going to do it, right, so you have a plan. Now usually when you're going to do something you need a leader, right, and now you can call this person a project manager, you can call this person a team leader, but you need somebody who's going to be responsible to get this done, right, so this leader is important because this leader is going to be like the coordinator, the main person who's going to acquire resources, that means he's going to put the people together, him and other things that are needed to get the work done, he's going to fight fires and obstacles, that means fight fires means he's going to handle all the difficult things, he's going to overcome, resolve the problems, he's going to provide leadership, he's going to be involved in negotiation, resolving conflicts, persuading people, so he has to have those kinds of abilities, this leader needs to have credibility so that people will trust him and put him in charge of this and trust him, trust him with money and resources, this person needs to have sensitivity to the situation, sensitivity to people, you know, so there's that human side that's required, we already said leadership there's got to be ethics, he's got to have a leadership style that matches what what is needed, you know, for example if you're going to go and feed people, you need somebody who is very humane, very peoples-centric, but whereas if you're going to build a website you need somebody who's very technical, who I mean or at least who understands those kinds of things, so you know the style and the leadership style depends on, it really depends on what kind of work you're getting done and the team leader also needs to handle stress because he or she will be the main point, the main person getting responsibility, so they're just just gentle thoughts here, or when you pick a person to lead the work, right, so in the initiating project you need to have a plan, you need to have a person who's going to lead the work and then you also need to think about okay what are the skills I need for the team, that means okay I need to put a team of people together, but what kind of people do I need, obviously if you're going to build a website then you need people who are going to, who know how to do that, right, technical people, so you can decide, look I need these skills required for this project and it's going to be done in this timeline that is in three months, right, so basically in your initiating stage, stage one, these are the things you're thinking about, the plan, the person is going to lead and the kind of people you need to get the work done, right, so you're working through this process, now usually as you have these discussions you would decide these things as a group, that means you're a pastor or you're the leader of the Christian organization, you know you may have a person who's handling HR who's going to help you find these people, you may have two or three other people who are the pastors who are going to, you know you're discussing this with the team of the group of people saying hey this is what we need to do, who's the best person who can lead this, you know what kind of team we have, so this initial group would be you know the stakeholders, usually it's the people who are you know overall responsibility for the project and they're thinking through on these things and once they get all these thoughts together they will find a person who's going to be their leader, a team lead or project manager and they will hand this work to that person to execute, now once we have that initial initiating stage you then move into the planning stage, that means this is usually done by the project manager the team leader right, so he's this person he or she is going to plan this out okay I've got a task to do, I've got a project to do, I've got to get a website put up or I've got to feed a thousand people for three months or I've got to go out there and care for people in the slums whatever the project you know so the project manager or the team leader will then work through these things which is first of all you've got to have a schedule that means what are you going to get done by when, okay so you have a plan okay in three months example website well in the first month I need to have you know a prototype done I need to have just the idea of what what we want to capture the website then second month I need to have the website up in the in a development environment and I need to be able to see what's happening and the progress made made and by the end of step third month you know we can break it on further I need to have it tested I need to have it checked and then I go live by this date right so you kind of break down the whole project and you arrive have a project scheduled so typically they call it work breakdown structure you will break it into smaller activities put time lines to it but you'll arrive at a schedule this is a time plan you also need to arrive at a cost estimation that means this is going to overall cost us so much now to arrive at the cost estimation of course you break it down okay so we have to break it down to the money that needs to be paid as salaries there is some there are other expenses like maybe we need to buy certain things hardware software phone then there is there may be other things involved so if for example if you're going to you know feed a thousand people for three months okay of course there's a lot of money that's needed for the food you need people who are going to do all the cooking and the distribution of food you need there may be travel involved because you may need to make sure that people are deployed where they are needed so on so all these things are become part of the cost so you to look at everything that's that goes into doing the project arrive at the cost estimation then the activities that means what are the things that need to be done to get the project completed right so you'll start all the activities that need to be done think through okay we need this to be done we need so example and feeding the people well you need people you need people are going to purchase all the materials the raw materials from the market you need people are going to be there to cook the food for three months you need people are going to be able to distribute the food to the people for this time so basically these are three main activities that will need to be done then of course you have you know maybe if if these it depends on how you're going to feed the people you know you may need people who are going to wash all the dishes or get rid of all the garbage that's being collected you know garbage disposal waste disposal so that might become another activity so we're assuming these thousand people are living in a camp they are living in their own homes etc but food is being delivered you know or they're coming to a particular place where they're eating the food so you know depending on how it's going to be done you can break down the activities then you need to allocate resources who are the people are going to do it right so all this goes into the planning of it you know people are going to do these various activities and you also want to think about what are the potential risks and how do we mitigate them how do we either prevent them or if it does happen how do we resolve them so anything we do there will be risks you know so example if you're going to cook food for a thousand people what if the main cook doesn't show up or the main cook goes unwell do we have a backup you know so you think like that right because that's a potential risk what if we don't get the raw ingredients at the market that is closest do we have some other place where we can go and get the raw ingredients the vegetables the rice and the the things that you're going to cook or what if you know we don't have enough people to distribute the food can we get more people to come various things you think about okay these are the risks involved and how do we mitigate how do we resolve those risks or even prevent those risks right the best thing is to be preventive so you always have a backup you always have preventive measures in some cases you may need to react that means you have a plan if it happens then i will do this in some cases i can prevent it from happening because i know that is a potential risk i can prevent it from happening by taking action right now but these are the things that need to be thought through uh when we are planning something right uh everybody's with me so far let me just check all okay so far that's okay all right so thank you let's move forward then uh when you're thinking about uh the planning so you plan like this now you know uh sometimes believers will say you know why are you thinking about risks it's negative thinking you know it's not negative thinking uh we are just being wise we are just thinking in advance of what are the potential problems and how to prevent them right so don't think that uh just because we are doing a risk assessment that we are negative people we're not negative people uh we are preventive we are wise we are uh because you know things could go wrong and we try to prevent those things from happening because our goal is we want to get the project done we want to get the work done uh whatever the ministry the conference the website or the serving food for people or helping people in the slums whatever the project is then we go to stage three which is execution now while the work execution means okay now we jump in and start the work right so while the work is going on during execution there are some things that are very important to make sure the work goes on well right so while the work is going on well what are some things one very important thing is community team interaction or communication that means uh you see to get the whole work done there are different teams that are working different groups of people that are working so let's say suppose we had to feed a thousand people for three months well there is the purchasing people that's one team they're going to go and purchase all the raw ingredients there is the cooking team you know you have we may have four or five people doing the cooking because thousand people have to be cooked three meals then you have the distribution team you know you may have 50 people in the distribution team because you know you have to get food to across to thousand people and these teams have to interact they have to talk to each other they have to let each other know so the you know the purchasing team in case they have a problem they need to immediately inform the cooking team hey today there is no salt there's no salt i can't buy salt then you know quickly find a solution you know how do we go get this ingredient that we need whatever and i'm just making things up but there has to be communication between the various teams or various people who are involved so that is very important during execution while the work is being done communication should happen now how this happens depends on how the work is being done right in if it's you know some some work that's being done in an office setting people of course can communicate through emails and all of that but if it's a work that's being done on the field people are not sitting in front of computers they are you know working busy on the field in the market or they're in the in the kitchen or they're out there cleaning up and getting ready for the next meal in the in the in the in the hall where food is going to be served and so on so then you can't use email as a communication you probably just have to use phone calls or WhatsApp messages something like that so that communication should be facilitated depending on how the work is being done make sure that communication happens because that's very important to execution another important part in execution executing a project is team motivation that means people need to be encouraged people need to be motivated while the work is being done because a lot of discouragement can sit in sometimes it's just plain tiredness people can get tired they need to take breaks they need to refresh themselves and they need to you know feel excited and energized about the work so the project manager the project leader should keep a pulse on the people how they are feeling are they being more are they being motivated you know are they energized do they need a break do we need to you know let somebody get some rest and somebody else take their place and you know so that team motivation the morale of the team is very important during execution also if there is conflict between team members that has to be addressed and we will talk about that in the next section but motivating the team needs to be done constantly right part of executing also is you know to have review meetings you know so you get you know various various teams now you can do this on a weekly basis so you can do it you know on a daily basis really depends on how now what the project is about but you need to review right how are things going so that you can resolve problems as early as possible as quickly as possible so review meetings keep happening team members are talking we resolve problems as part of the execution you know so if you you know if you're building a website and something people get stuck because they don't have the information they need that has to be addressed or maybe they're not sure what needs to be you know done in a certain situation then you need to bring in somebody who can help them you know so the problems have to be resolved during this whole execution process and we need some sort of way to highlight the problems and resolve them and one of the best ways is through these meetings you know daily or weekly review meetings problems are highlighted discussed and resolved other other thing about the execution is they may be purchasing the needs to be done things that need to be bought vendors who need to be interacted with hardware software or things that need to be bought you know so that there's this ongoing expense that happens and somebody should be responsible for that and then there is reporting that means we want to inform stake leaders the leadership so the project manager should inform the pastor so that the leadership team saying hey this is how things are going we are on track or things are delayed or we run into some unexpected problems whatever is important it has to be reported back to the leadership so all this happens during execution right while the work is going on these are some of the things that take place that happen and while the work is going on there has to be monitoring so that means they're keeping a check on how things are going for monitoring to happen there has to be measuring and controlling that means measure we need to look at the data so measurements are based on data you know and we will explain some of these things so there has to be measurement then there has to be control like okay let's cut this down let's expand there has to be those decisions that are made so what could happen they could be expanding scope so for example maybe the project started out saying we're going to feed 1,000 people for three months but sometimes it could turn out that there are 1,500 people who need to be fed oh so it's the project has become bigger we planned for 1,000 but there are actually 1,500 people over there so the scope has become bigger or you may have planned for three months but the people are saying look we are going to be we need help for four months so then the scope of the project has changed it's expanded it's become bigger than what we had originally thought so this expanding scope this has to be monitored you know and this you will get to know only when you start the work you know you're gone there you're on the ground you're starting to help the people and suddenly you find that the need is much bigger than what you had initially planned for right so the scope expands increases and then we need to control we need to make a decision what do we do how are you going to help you know you plan for 1,000 people but now there are 1,500 people what are you going to do and you know or you plan for three months but now they're saying help is needed for four months what are you going to do right how will you respond to that now when the scope expands obviously there are increasing costs sometimes okay you know the cost has gone up can you do you have that extra money can you raise that extra money are you allowed to increase the cost and by how much you know and if you don't have that extra money then what are you going to do with the scope so what if you really don't have money to feed 1,500 people oh we have to make some decisions so then you would say okay should we go ahead and feed 1,500 people but now reduce the time from three months to two months is that possible because we don't have the extra money we need but the scope is bigger right so how do we resolve it maybe we can tell them that we can only feed them for two months because there are 500 more people than what we budgeted or if they say look you have to feed us for you know we need help for four months how are we going to resolve that maybe we say we'll only give you two meals a day two good meals a day we'll just give you lunch and dinner because you know we don't have that extra money but maybe if you cut down on the breakfast it will enable us to stretch for one more month so we'll have to come up with those solutions or if you have to go and raise funds saying hey we need that much more money because the scope of the project has become bigger than what we started with so increase in cost so along with so the monitoring you know is needed because these are things that can happen while the project is being executed and then you need to quickly find solutions while things are happening in in real time there will be other things that we need to monitor that is people like we said you know what if people leave what if people become unwell what if there are conflicts between people what if people are not performing as they should maybe they don't have the skills that they said they had and or the skills are not up to the level that we need and so they're not able to do the work it will affect the project it'll affect what needs to be done so people management becomes something that we need to monitor evaluate we assess and then decisions have to be made so example if somebody is doesn't have the skill that we need you know then what do you do well you may have to move them off the project and find somebody to replace them very quickly because we don't want the whole project to be affected so these are decisions that you make you can make only if you measure and control only if you see how people are performing can you detect that problem and then resolve the solution if you're not monitoring what happens that person who is not performing will just stay on the project project will keep getting delayed and you'd be wondering why is the project being delayed it's because there are people who don't have the skills who are not able to do the work and so the things are being delayed even though they may have claimed to have the skills and so on it also monitor quality that means you know i'll be doing it to the level at which we want to do so example in the website that's being built you know if there are problems in the website those bugs have to be fixed or in feeding the people is the quality of the food being sent given to the people the what we plan to do or is the quality poor right so so we have to monitor quality are we doing the work the way it needs to be done and you also have to monitor schedule are we on time right or is getting delayed are we following the plan the timeline that we had planned for right so these are things you need to keep monitoring monitor the scope the size of the project monitor the cost the money that's being spent monitor the people who are doing the work monitor the quality of what is being done and monitor the schedule are we on track as far as time is concerned so this happens in every every case that we have to watch finally towards the end of the project you know while we are in the closing final stage you know let's say the work is done and now we have to wrap up right it's always good to do review and assessment of the project basically this is an attempt for us to of course close the project in a very clean way but also it is an it is time for us to learn from the experience and take the learning with us into future work that we do right so we need to review and assess so look back on the project you know what did we learn what did we do right where did we go wrong or what are the problems we faced how did we overcome those problems what was what was the actual money that was spent versus what we estimated did we go over and by how much or did we come under and how much now what about the time that we estimated it you know how did we do in time and cost these are two main things that you would you know look at the estimate was the actual that money that was spent you know how could we have avoided additional costs or how could we have avoided time that has gone away you know and then so we do a good review of the project so that in the future you know we could apply or use those lessons that we have learned from this experience okay so this is how we will go we go generally speaking right go about our work let me just quickly review so what we are saying is or what we said is in the church or in the ministry there'll be a lot of things that we have to do you know whether it's ministries conferences trips projects other events a lot of things that we have to plan organize execute coordinate how do we do that uh the general approach is uh to break it down into these five stages one when you initiate the project you have a clear plan you appoint a leader you choose your leader based on the certain skills and capabilities they have and then you also to decide what kind of team you're going to have then the project leader takes it forward the project leader develops a plan draws up a schedule arrives at a cost estimate arrives at breaking down the activities or the activities that need to be done finding the right people who can fulfill those activities also things ahead about potential risks and a plan to mitigate or prevent those risks or resolve those risks so you do a good planning then you jump in and start doing the work executing it so while the work is being done make sure that the team interactions and communications are good keep the people motivated the team motivated have review meetings discuss things resolve problems there will be money that is spent purchasing things like that and also you provide reports to the leadership to keep them updated on the progress of the project and while things are being while you're in the execution you're also monitoring that means you're keeping a check you're measuring and checking things whether the scope of the project the size of the project is what you thought it would be what's been planned for the money being spent people are they doing well interactions are going fine the quality of what's being done is it good and are we on schedule and in time and once the project is over you're towards the end of it do a full review and assessment look back how was this experience how was how did we do listen to the people let the people give feedback look at the data the actual versus the estimate in terms of cost and time what could we have done better and then take these lessons for use on future projects or similar activities all right so that is in general how we do these projects so that you know as the church or the ministry keeps doing this they can become better yeah I would encourage documentation that means write down experiences write down what you've learned and usually we capture it in planning documents that means suppose we do a conference let's say a Christian leaders conference then we have a planning document where to do that conference all these things have to be done basically it's based on lessons we have learned from doing that conference in previous years we capture that so that the person who's put in charge to do that can benefit from the learning of the previous years and doing a similar or same conference so when you document it when you capture those experiences then you know we don't have to make the same mistakes again we can be aware of what are the challenges that would come up and prevent those challenges from happening okay so that's just an idea of how we execute projects carry out the practical side of carrying out a conference or a ministry work this is how we would go about things any questions before we close out for today any thoughts any ideas you want to share all good everybody understood all right so um okay I see your comments on the chat thank you so what we're gonna do is uh let's close in prayer and uh people continue our topics here next week all right let's pray together let's dismiss may I ask uh I don't know maybe we'll ask uh Siddharth maybe you could pray and dismiss the class for us please thank you for this day I've given us a lot I'm just gonna pray that as we end our classes a lot we just want to pray that baby does and guide us and lead us a lot God I just want to pray that bless each and every one of us as we continue our day plus the teaching that we have just learned and I pray God that everything that we've been learning I pray that it's like an investment or a knowledge and I pray that we pray into practice and let our play help us to our play in our life for God and I just want to pray that I'll be with us and guide us in Jesus's name you pray God amen thank you everyone uh enjoy the rest of your day and have a good weekend enjoy your weekend as you spend time worship and receiving God's word God bless you all see you next week by now thank you thank you everybody thank you thank you Dave thank you everyone thank you friends bye now