Note: Each committee page has its own list of projects and associated action plans based on this theory of project management.

To accomplish the long-range goals listed in the LPB Mission Statement, we must undertake a series of intermediate goals, or projects. The Franklin Covey company is one of the most widely recognized and respected institutions in the world for providing time-management instruction. Their project management class names four broad steps for successfully accomplishing any project:

1. Visualize
2. Plan
3. Implement
4. Close

In their "TimeQuest" seminar, they use the "Productivity Pyramid" concept to illustrate the logical structure of "doing right things right". We will borrow that concept, expanding and altering it to suit our own unique agenda.

THE LPB PRODUCTIVITY PYRAMID

As you can see from the illustration, we begin with certain premises and work our way logically through several necessary intermediate layers before arriving at the daily tasks that will ultimately consummate our goals. Let us examine the layers, starting with the foundation:

1. NATURAL RIGHTS (Life, Liberty, Property): We commence with basic ethical axioms on which Libertarians universally agree. These axioms are that individual human beings have rights granted by nature (or God) to life, liberty, and honestly acquired property.
2. RECOGNITION OF NATURAL RIGHTS (Libertarian Party Platform, Non-Aggression Principle): The national Libertarian Party (LP) Platform provides detailed points for reducing government to its only proper role in society, which is the protection of natural rights from infringement by others (including the government). This is summed up best by the Libertarian Oath, which captures the foundational concept of respect for self-ownership and is a requirement for membership in the LP: "I do not believe in or advocate the initiation of physical force to achieve any political or social goal."
3. LPB MISSION STATEMENT: This summarizes how best to achieve the LP platform locally.
4. GOVERNING VALUES (Constitution,Standing Rules, By-Laws, Robert’s Rules of Order): Always believing in self-responsibility, civility, and accountability, these internal standards have been established to govern the officers, appointed chairs, and membership to assure just and accountable behavior in line with Libertarian principles.
5. ROLES: EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE (Elected Officers, Appointed Committee Chairs): The roles of the Executive Committee (ExComm) members include the brainstorming generation of project ideas to help the LPB fulfill its mission statement.
6. PERHAPS LISTS: These are the results of the brainstorming sessions of the ExComm.
7. PROJECTS: These are the selections from the Perhaps Lists that will be formally planned and implemented as projects.
8. IMPLEMENTATION COMMITTEES: The various committees formed at the inception of the LPB have been tasked to plan and implement the projects named by the ExComm.
9. INTERMEDIATE STEPS: The committee assigned to execute a given project must write a detailed, step-by-step plan for achieving the project's stated outcome.
10. LPB GENERAL MEMBERSHIP: As a regular part of the LPB monthly meeting agenda, a call for project volunteers is made. Volunteers receive a copy of the detailed project plan and a target deadline for completion of that project.
11. SEMI-MONTHLY COMPASS: Part of the duties of the ExComm include a regular follow-up with the project volunteers to offer guidance and assistance to those volunteers, thus helping them to "stay the course".
12. DAILY TASKS: The actual daily actions taken by the general membership volunteers to achieve the projects. This is where "the rubber meets the road".
13. RESULTS: The end results of the actions taken.  Hopefully, these actual results match or exceed the originally planned project results.
14. EVALUATE: Did local respect for natural rights grow? All of this activity is only worthwhile if, at the end, local respect of the essential Libertarian axioms by government and the citizens increases.

This page was last updated 07/02/00 01:51 PM