Telescoping
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Telescoping is a methodology used
in planning for breaking down large projects into manageable chunks. It is
also known as "Chunking Down".
As an example of how to do
telescoping we shall imagine that we are going on a journey from Land's
End to John O' Groats. This is a long journey, so we initially think of
the journey as being in two halves - the first to cross England and the
second to cross Scotland. |
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Figure 1 shows how we would expand the activity of crossing England into three sub-activities -
crossing the South West then the Midlands and then the North West. We have
created three sub-activities for the one high level activity of crossing
England.
We can however take this further by expanding one of these three
sub-activities to show what is required within it. |
Figure 1
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Let's expand Crossing the South West to see what that
entails. |
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Once again, the sub-activity is expanded. Figure 2 shows
how crossing the South West has also been chunked down into three
activities:
- Land's End to Exeter
- Exeter to Bristol
- Bristol to the end of the South West
The assumption is that the South West does not end at Bristol! |
Figure 2
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Again we can expand the journey from Land's End to Exeter. |
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Figure 3 shows how the journey from Land's end to Exeter
has been segmented into travelling to the various places along the
way.
Each of these short journeys could have its own action plan for its
completion.
In this example it would be to drive up the A30! Whether we actually
visited each location or just passed through, would also be in the
detailed plan. |
Figure 3
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This technique can be used for any type of
planning. Each activity would be telescoped out so that people can view
its sub-activities. When a higher level perspective is required we can
close up the "Telescope" to obtain the level that we require.
The concept is similar in its construct to a multi-level PERT chart. Its
utility is however in its simplicity. This type of diagramming can be
understood by people with no project management training. Figure 4 shows
the four levels of telescoping for this example. |
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Figure 4
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