Alignment

Scope and differentiators equals success

I learned a lesson this week and it involved me breaking the golden rule of project management (external to the context of managing projects).  Fortunately no children or small furry critters were harmed in the making of this story, yet a lot of heartache and inconvenience could have been avoided for all parties involved had I observed this rule. That is, always, ALWAYS define the scope of any initiative, project or business opportunity that is presented. Understand what the key inputs and outputs are, hammer out the requirements and identify all the stakeholders.  That, of course is a no-brainer when it comes to PM and Prince 2 (and I’m sure PM BOK) speaks in detail about the subject.  However, what about applying this principle to other areas of life?

We’ve all taken on or had handed to us projects that had an ill-defined scope.  We’ve all been handed projects where the expected business benefits are not even clear much less when we expect to realise them.  But what about for example a business unit or a company?  An internal IT organisation knows by the nature of its name that it is supposed to provide IT support to the rest of the business. But if it has no strategy or vision, how does it know what it is supposed achieve let alone what it needs to achieve it and then measure its success and make changes if required?  How does it differentiate its service offerings from any other business unit’s?  How does it then motivate its staff and measure their success?  Most orgs have these statements, its business rule 101.  However, I have worked for organisations who’s identity revolves around being customer focused, flexible, and recruiting good people with specialised talent to provide services.  But lets be serious, how many businesses are going to say “well actually, we’ll do what we can with what we have to the best of our ability…and we’ll fake the rest”  The truth is everybody says they are customer focused and flexible and all of that good stuff.  Where’s the differentiators?  This permeates from business mission statements to PD’s right down to CV’s for people that are applying for roles.  Mostly its not worth the paper its printed on.

Successful departments, companies, consultancies and business people know what it is specifically that they are setting out to achieve, what they need to achieve it and know exactly how to gauge when they get there. Scope, benefits realisation schedules and quality plans….and I don’t mean by saying things like customer focused, flexible, strategic partnerships etc. These are given, not differentiators.

This stuff has been hammered into me from an early age when it comes to managing projects, but its critical we apply these basic principles to all areas of life if we are to be successful.