This series of devotions is designed to be completed over several days.
Devotion – Project Management Series (Nehemiah)
Project Initiation & Planning
In your groups, read the following Scriptures. Then answer the questions below.
- Nehemiah 1-2
- What steps did Nehemiah take to initiate and plan this project?
- Who are the people in these roles: project manager, team, customer, sponsor, stakeholder?
- What agreements does Nehemiah make with different groups or individuals?
- What requests does he make from different groups or individuals?
- What is the project scope?
- What can we learn from how Nehemiah managed this project?
Devotion – Project Management Series (Nehemiah)
Project Execution
In your groups, read the following Scriptures. Then answer the questions below.
- Nehemiah 3
- Create a project plan for building the wall. For each task, identify:
- Owner
- Duration
- Due Date (assume an overall project deadline of 4 months)
- Cost/Budget
- Who Pays?
- Put the tasks in order and identify predecessors and successors (be creative with this, since it’s not clearly stated).
- Identify the critical path by placing asterisks by critical path tasks.
Devotion – Project Management Series (Nehemiah)
Risk Management
In your groups, read the following Scriptures. Then answer the questions below.
- Nehemiah 4-6
- What unexpected events threated to take the project off plan?
- Which threats were internal to the team, and which ones were external?
- How did Nehemiah deal with them?
- How could he have prepared for them in advance?
- What can we learn from Nehemiah’s example?
Devotion – Project Management Series (Nehemiah)
Risk Management
In your groups, read the following Scriptures. Then answer the questions below.
- Nehemiah 7:1-5, 70-73; 8:1-18; 9:1-3, 38; 10:28-39; 11:1-2; 12:44-47
- What things did Nehemiah do that would help to ensure the sustainability (ability to be maintained) of the project?
- How do you think these would help?
- What promises did the people make?
- What can we learn from these Scriptures?
Devotion – Project Management Series (Nehemiah)
Project Close-Out
In your groups, read the following Scriptures. Then answer the questions below.
- Nehemiah 12:27-43
- How did Nehemiah celebrate the completion of the project?
- What can we learn from Nehemiah’s example?
- Why do you think celebration and close-out might be important?
Devotion – Project Management Series (Nehemiah)
Monitoring & Evaluation
In your groups, read the following Scriptures. Then answer the questions below.
- Nehemiah 13
- What happened after Nehemiah returned to Babylon?
- What promises from Chapter 10 did the people break?
- What could Nehemiah have done to prevent these problems?
- What is the importance of monitoring and evaluation for the success of a project?
- How should it be done?