Project Waterloo

Project work is a cornerstone of modern organizations.

Companies must move quickly to incorporate new ideas and technologies to meet evolving customer needs and fend off competitors who may have found the better mousetrap.

Well run projects provide structure and method to efficiently solve such challenges.

Poorly run projects drive leaders & teams bananas, consuming time and leaving piles of cash smoldering in the corner.

And most projects don’t deliver the goods. The Standish Group estimates that only an underwhelming 31% of IT projects are successful!

If you find yourself responsible for a project, here are some ideas, informed by my leadership experiences and training as a Six Sigma Black Belt and Master Black Belt, to increase your probability of success.

1 - Do you have a project Charter which includes a clear problem statement?

Projects are doomed if they do not have a clear view of the measurable problem to be solved.

LEADERSHIP NUGGET: If your Charter does not articulate in one or two sentences the problem and why anybody should care about it, you may be working on somebody’s hobby horse or vague notion. STOP, regroup and create a proper and well syndicated charter.

2 - Is the project well scoped?

It's fashionable to launch grandiose, enterprise wide “TRANSFORMATION” projects. But caveat emptor my friends.

Projects scoped to redesign all things are fated to deliver late, over budget and will miss the target outcome. They transform all right, but in the wrong direction!

LEADERSHIP NUGGET: Don’t “boil the ocean”. Instead, break the problem into logical chunks. Use your Charter to test for “scope creep” as you move through formal project tollgates. If you’ve got a project cluster with 50 workstreams, you’re not working on a project, you’re living a nightmare.

3 - Insist on a project execution methodology

Whether you use Lean, Agile, Kaizen, Six Sigma or whatever else doesn’t matter. A method brings critical discipline when it comes to structuring the work.

LEADERSHIP NUGGET: A disciplined method with an experienced project manager and team members familiar with the method will help you keep an eye on true north, especially as inevitable challenges arise.

4 - Do you have a senior executive leader responsible for this project and are they engaged and onboard? (spoiler alert, this one is super important!!)

Successful projects require a senior level executive who cares deeply about outcomes, meaning they engage with, and sign-off on, the Charter, marshall resources, provide guidance through formal toll gate processes and clear roadblocks.

They feel accountable for helping shepherd the project along through its toll gates and are empowered to reorient the team if you go off course.

If circumstances or facts change, they can also decide to pull the plug or help course correct if it turns out the project cannot be successful as originally chartered.

There is no failure in ending a project which has not, for whatever reason, delivered the desired outcomes but it does require guts and the determination to learn from the experience.

And doing so avoids the problem of the dreaded Zombie Project: an initiative which does not die, carrying mindlessly on down the road to nowhere, propelled by its own soul crushing logic quarter after quarter and dragging the tattered corpse of your career in its wake.

LEADERSHIP NUGGET: if senior leadership is not committed, leave the project on the shelf until they are. Tone and demonstrable commitment from the top are critical to success.

5 - Keep the Change

Projects result in change. Otherwise, you wouldn’t be doing it. Intentional change management (helping the team understand the “why” of the change and “what” it means for them) is critical to building commitment to the outcomes of the work.

LEADERSHIP NUGGET: change management is often the thing thought of last but it should be present from the scoping phase throughout. Projects cannot succeed if people aren’t willing to come along the journey to the new destination and usually you have to help them get there!

6 - It’s not all about tech

Your solution may not be a new system or app, at least not at first. Start with the comparatively inexpensive (but critical) work to sort out process problems the old fashioned way with process maps, swim lanes, RACI matrices, etc. Eliminate/simplify what you can and THEN think about possible digital solutions.

LEADERSHIP NUGGET: Don’t digitize a bad process. Be suspicious of whiz-bang new tech solutions, if you haven’t already optimized processes as far as you can without an additional IT spend. If you go with a tech solution, BEWARE the consultant or vendor who promises flying cars and talking robots: that way lies ruin. Avoid customization except as absolutely necessary. Stand up the tech, see how it works and then, later, decide about how much customization you want to pay for.

That’s all for now. If you would like to discuss how you can more effectively drive project related work at your company, I’d love the chance to speak with you. Please feel free to schedule a Discovery Session with me by clicking on the blue button below.

You can also sign up on my website, or at the bottom of this form, to receive these blogs in your email inbox!

Be well everybody.