How to Manage Projects in a Small Business: Pilot, Copilot and the Fortnightly Review

Daily routines and short team meetings keep a business moving. Bigger work, such as launching a service, moving premises or rolling out new software, needs more than a to-do list. These projects stall in the gaps: nobody wrote the steps down, two people assumed the other had it covered, and nobody checked in until the deadline had already passed.

Two of the Zaffarology 5 Pillars deal with that problem. Pillar 3, How to Achieve, gives every project a step-by-step system with a lead and a backup. Pillar 5, the Fortnightly Progress Review, checks every two weeks whether the work is on track. This guide explains both, with a worked example you can copy.

Why projects stall

Most owners can name a project that dragged on for months. The cause is rarely a lack of effort. It's usually missing structure: the steps weren't clear, responsibility wasn't shared properly, or nobody looked at progress regularly enough to catch a slip early.

Hospitals offer a surprising lesson. A study across eight hospitals in eight cities introduced a 19-item surgical safety checklist designed to improve teamwork and consistency. Researchers reported that major complications fell from 11 percent to 7 percent and inpatient deaths from 1.5 percent to 0.8 percent. Surgical teams are highly trained, so the gain came from written steps and shared checks rather than extra skill. Surgery is a different world from a small business, but the principle carries over: clear steps and a second pair of eyes catch what busy experts miss.

Step 1: write the steps and draw the flowchart

Start by describing the finished result in one sentence, including what "done" looks like. Then list the steps as short actions, each beginning with a verb: draft the offer, price it, test it with three customers, fix what they flagged, announce it.

Draw the sequence as a simple flowchart. Boxes are steps, and diamonds are decisions, such as "Did two of three customers buy?" with a yes path and a no path. The drawing forces you to find the gaps, like a step that depends on something no one has started. It also gives every person on the team the same picture, so nobody has to rely on their own interpretation of the plan.

Keep the first version rough. One page is enough, and you can refine it after the first review.

Step 2: name a lead and a backup

Every project gets two names. One person leads and moves the work forward. A second person backs them up and can take over when needed.

Aviation has used this model for decades. The FAA's guidance on crew resource management describes the pilot who isn't flying as a monitor, and says that effective monitoring and cross-checking can be the last line of defence against an error. One person flies the plane, and the other watches the instruments, handles communication and speaks up when something looks wrong.

Translate that into a business like this. The lead owns the next step. The backup checks the plan against reality, keeps the communication flowing and steps in without waiting for permission if the lead is away or stuck. Swap the roles from project to project so that two people understand each system, and neither becomes the only person who knows how something works.

Step 3: connect the project to the daily rhythm

A project only moves if its next step lands on someone's calendar. Each morning, the lead turns the next step into one of the day's money-making actions where it relates to revenue, or into a protected block of time where it doesn't. The backup does the same for their part.

At the daily huddle, report on the project the same way as any other task: it's done, or here's the next date. The project plan stays visible without needing a long meeting. The 2 Minute Huddle and AM Planning and PM Achievement pillars supply the daily discipline, and the flowchart supplies the direction.

Step 4: the fortnightly review

Daily checks catch small slips. A fortnightly review checks the direction. The Zaffarology method puts it on the 1st and the 16th of each month, and moves it to the next day if it falls on a public holiday, so the rhythm doesn't break.

Keep the agenda short, about 30 minutes, and use the same four questions each time:

• What moved since the last review, and what proof do we have?

• What slipped, and why?

• Who owns the next step, and what's the new deadline?

• What's one thing we should stop, start or change?

Rank each project, say green, amber or red, and give brief feedback to the lead and the backup. The method also puts loyalty, AI and record keeping on the review agenda. In practice, that means checking whether customers, staff and partners are being looked after, whether any task could be handed to an AI tool, and whether the records are up to date.

Written progress reports help, too. In a well-known study of goal achievement, Gail Matthews found that people who wrote their goals, committed to actions and sent weekly progress reports to a friend accomplished significantly more than those who didn't. The fortnightly review is the business version of that report, with the whole team as the audience.

Keep the notes. The ATO says you should keep most business records for five years, and a short file of review notes also gives you a history of what you decided and why.

A worked example: launching a new service in six weeks

Say a landscaping business wants to add a monthly garden maintenance plan. Done means ten paying subscribers by week six.

The steps are: define the plan and price, build a one-page offer, call the 30 best past customers, run a trial with five, fix what they flag, and open sales. The owner leads, and the office manager backs up. They draw the flowchart in twenty minutes, with a decision after the trial: if fewer than three of five say yes, change the offer before launch.

Each morning, the owner schedules the calls as one of the day's money-making actions. The office manager handles the paperwork and chases the replies. In the daily huddle, each reports "yes" or a new date.

The first fortnightly review falls two weeks in. The offer is built, and ten calls are done. Progress is amber because calls are behind. They agree the office manager will book a block of calls, and the owner will clear Thursday morning. By the second review, the trial is under way and the project is green. The review caught a slip while there was still time to fix it.

Common mistakes

Too many steps is the first one. A flowchart with sixty boxes won't be read, so keep it to what someone needs to act on. The second is a backup in name only, so make sure the backup knows what's happening and is invited to the huddle. The third is turning the review into a blame session. Ask what got in the way, not who failed. The fourth is skipping reviews when busy, which is when they matter most. Put them in the calendar as fixed dates. The last is no definition of done, which makes it impossible to say whether the project worked.

Where this fits

These pillars sit alongside the rest of the method. Pillar 1, Dreaming to Achieving, sets the goal, the 2 Minute Huddle keeps the team aligned each day, and AM Planning and PM Achievement structures each day. You can read all five on the 5 Pillars page and practise them with the free workbook.

To see the method in a room full of other owners, the next workshop is on Friday 6 November 2026 at Logan Hub, and you can reserve a seat online. For longer-term accountability, the 90 Day Business Transformation Challenge is the mentoring option, and the podcast covers the ideas in conversation. Questions go through the contact page.

Information here is general and educational, and isn't financial, legal or investment advice.