My guess is more people will read my last article’s insights into why projects fail, rather than this article about why projects succeed. But sometimes you can learn more, gain more momentum, and capitalize more from success!
It’s like we are motivated by fear more than we are by success. We might think that “wild success” is “beyond our wildest dreams,” and we would be happy with just not failing. Our biggest fear in life is “failure” after all. Our second is closely related, “fear of the unknown.”
Great Change Project management takes these two fears head on, makes order out of chaos, and delivers success. Let’s talk about success!
Here is my takeaway #9 from one of the most useful practical books in my field, “Project Management for the Unofficial Project Manager”:
9) “A successful project: Meets or exceeds expectations; optimizes resources; and builds team confidence and morale for future projects.”
Note: This comes from Chapter 1 “The New World of ‘Unofficial’ Project Management” (page 10)
The book continues “Too many people call your project a success if all you’ve done is meet the deadline and the budget. But did you meet or exceed expectations, the first measure of success? Did you achieve your business outcomes? …And did you truly optimize resources, the second measure of success?”
If you and your organization have properly vetted projects, and properly defined your project success criteria and you finish your project in scope and on time, technically your project is a success. You will have met the requirements of the project and achieved expressed business outcomes. But the real measure of success is if the project leads to ongoing improvement in professional resources (People, Processes, and Tools) and abilities as individuals, teams, and organizations to adapt and change for the better.
Can your organization build from the success of one project to succeed in a similar way on the next project?
Story time: I have finished successful projects (where we exceeded realistic expectations), even rescued failing “disaster, cleanup” projects, only to find that the organization didn’t learn what was leading to failure (unclear about desired business outcomes to begin with and the necessary processes, resources, and resulting ambiguity of impact and benefits realization) and what was leading to success (fully optimizing resources and overcoming gaps in the process, mainly in collaboration, coordination, and communication).
Future projects suffered again from the same mistreatment as before. We didn’t change our ways starting with how the organization (and teams and resources by extension) initiates projects, into the planning, through execution, monitoring & controlling, onto closing.
There is a snowball effect for good or bad going on. While you can mitigate some of the issues, it takes a different approach to organizational behavior, change and project management throughout (and thereafter) to get entirely different results. In other words, change initiatives are an organizational activity. You win together, and you fail together based on the cohesiveness of your unit seamlessly working together or not.
I repeat, I fought hard to change the way we approached project work and turned around operational train wrecks in the making, only to find that once the project was done the people in charge still had the expectation that we would now go back to the old way and do business as usual, their way, the way that created the messes to begin with.
I have also seen work environments improve as a result of learning from and piggybacking off of the successes found in project Organizational Process Assets (OPAs) from one successful project to another and another. It’s called Organizational Change Project Management and Continual Process Improvement.
My Storyboard PM business is founded on the principle that We must document our work stories, and current practices, at the base unit of our organizations, share our knowledge between effected individuals, teams, and parties and progress our businesses working collectively.
I have built a few knowledge bases for a few companies and at the foundation of that is empowerment of the frontline worker to document their projects and processes and build on those successful habits, rather than relying on top-down mandates from people who do not understand how to do your job. (It reminds me of the paradigm shift that happens on the show “Undercover Boss” for both sides.)
In the end, it is about improving as people and implementing better practices from start to finish from project to project. Tout successes for what they are and use that momentum to build morale and move onto the next success. You must recognize what you did differently to be successful, in order to repeat it.
If people don’t change for the better and processes don’t change for the better, then project outcomes and operational functions going forward don’t change for the better. By degree, if not full on, your team will revert back to the same poor practices of failure, if they don’t learn from successes. Simple as that!