If freelance writing was a project....

You must be wondering where was I all these days...well, my full-time job demanded much more of my time than before. For all those who do not know what my full-time job is - I am a project manager, trying to mess up projects as much as I can!! :)

Today, when I finally got a chance to shut down my official computer and caress the keyboard of my beloved laptop, I wondered what if establishing freelance writing business was a project. It was an interesting thought and I decided, I need to pen it down here. So, here we go...
When a project starts, as a project manager, following are the questions I would ask immediately:

• What is the project about? - as in what is the objective?
• What are my deliverables? - is it a new product, service, earnings?
• How much time have I got? - 1 month, 1 year?
• What is my budget? - do I have to elaborate this? :)

So, with the questions above, if I were to make "Nobody to Freelance Writer" - "N2FW" as my project, I would answer the above questions in the following way -

• What is the project about? The objective of N2FW project is:
• Establish a nobody with no stream of income as a successful freelance writer with a working operating model, thereby maintaining a steady inflow of income.

Now that the objective is clear enough for a project manager to get an idea of what he is going to work on, let us now define the various deliverables of the project:

• What are my deliverables? - this is always a tricky question and needs careful analysis of the scope of the project to determine that. Since I do not have the luxury of business analysts doing the homework for me, lets do some quick thinking on this. N2FW should be turning around the fortunes of a not-so-successful freelance writer in to a very much in-demand writer! This cannot be done till people know the writer and once they know, work starts flowing in and hence, more earnings!! Therefore, the very first two deliverables are popularise the writer and increase in earnings from freelance writing. Apart from this, if we revisit the objective, one would notice that we are also interested in establishing a working operating model to have a steady flow of income all throughout the year. Hence, our third deliverable that is screaming out of this page is a operating model to ensure the freelance writer is always earning! I have bulleted the three deliverables below for you:
• Popularise the freelance writer
• Increase in earnings from freelance writing
• a successful operating model to ensure steady earnings

I am sure most of us would agree with the above ambitions. After all, we would definitely like to earn something from the words we type without tiring for others. If anyone feels we need to add something more than what is placed above please let me know, I would be happy to incorporate. But my project management instincts tells me to warn you that the scope cannot be modified in later blogs...if you need more then this is the time to shout!

• How much time have I got? - Now this is indeed an interesting question. With the above deliverables, I would say anywhere between six months to one year would be a good bet. However, with a one-woman army who has to do the role of a business analyst, IT developer, business change manager, and a project manager, I would say one full year looks more realistic. At the very first analysis, some of the tasks that comes to my mind are - research, professional profile, marketing, client list, communication model, etc. Each of these and more would be analysed in detail in later blogs. So, let us agree on one year. If anyone feels that it can be done sooner, I am happy to make him/her co-project manager and ofcourse, need not mention who will benefit from this!:)

• What is my budget? - Last but not the least and definitely not unimportant is, how much am I ready to invest in this project. With a no body who doesnt have any stream of income, it is but difficult to invest in huge amounts. What I mean is a newbie freelance writer's marketing campaign would be small, he/she would not have a fancy website, and neither is she/he going to buy a organizer to organize their calendar. So, the budget would be very small. Say, 50$ per month? This is a constraint that every newbie freelance writer has to live with. Unfortunately.

So, am I ready to take one more project under my wing and turn it around? I think I have to do this...along the way when I would be making progress from project charter to progressing on my deliverables, I would blog this down to share with you all. I am hoping that I would be able to help some freelance writers turn in to superstars!

What do you all think? Is this a good idea?