Hey Reader,
There is a point in every organisation where a problem becomes a project. A concern becomes an initiative, an idea gets a budget, and someone is asked to prepare a business case. From that point onwards, everyone gets on and does the work.
How many times have you been asked to do something that made no sense to you? Do you know what you are actually trying to change? Why? Does it need to become a project at all?
Once an organisation has invested time, people and reputation in a project, the why and what becomes much harder to ask.
The hidden cost of starting
I've seen plenty of projects where the people involved are capable, the governance looks sensible and everyone is working hard, yet progress remains difficult. More analysis is commissioned, scope changes, different executives have different expectations, and a business case goes through repeated revisions.
When an organisation ends up here, in many cases the organisation began mobilising before it had created enough clarity about the need and expected outcome. Once that happens, delivery inherits the ambiguity.
The work before the work
Before establishing a project, commissioning the study or asking someone to write a report, I think senior leaders need to be clear themselves and have answers to these four questions.
What outcome needs to change? This is different from asking what we are going to build or produce. The starting point should be what needs to be different as a result of the organisation acting.
What decision are we actually trying to make? We need to be clear whether we are deciding whether to act, how to act, how much to invest, or whether we are still investigating the problem.
What is genuinely fixed? Obligations and real constraints need to be separated from preferences, assumptions and previous decisions that have gradually come to be treated as facts.
Who owns the outcome? Someone needs to remain accountable for the result when the work crosses functions, disciplines or organisational boundaries.
These aren't project management questions. They are leadership questions, and resolving them early can prevent a great deal of unproductive work later.
A useful test
Think about one significant piece of work your organisation has underway. If you stopped it tomorrow and removed the project's name, preferred solution and existing scope, could your executive team still agree, simply and consistently, on the outcome that needs to change?
If not, the next step may not be more project work. It may be to do some of the work that should have come before it.
Cheers, Simon.