About the way we execute projects

Every task, experiment or todo: whatever activity you can think of is to be defined as a “project”. All projects consist of the following aspects: a Desired Result, Guidelines, Resources, Accountability and Consequences that encompass all parties involved in executing the project. A project can either be for an external client, or an internal one. Most of the time with “bad” projects, some aspects are not properly defined. For instance, the desired result is not clear. Or more commonly: accountability is not defined so there is no way to measure progress or whether or not a project has been performed properly. This non-negotiable ties in nicely with the principle Fail Fast. If everyone is aligned on these principles, discussion will tend to focus on setting a hypothesis that can be tested, instead of degrading into a yes-no argument.

Below is the skeleton build-up for a project. The more you include, the ‘better’ described your project is. ‘Bad’ projects usually miss one or entire pieces of this skeleton. It should be noted that this skeleton is primarily based on the 7 habits and added upon by project management theory.

Desired Result (goals and targets, start with the end in mind, what, not how; results, not methods)

• Scope: what do you aim to achieve? What are the exact deliverables and their requirements? What do you not need to do?

• Risks: what will go wrong? Make post-mortem

• Stakeholders: who is your client? who or what is the enemy? What do they expect? Perform a stakeholder mapping.

• Planning: gantt chart with milestones (who, what, when, how, responsible)

Guidelines (Parameters within which individual operates/restrictions; Identify where quicksand and wild animals are; What NOT to do)

• What can you do and what can you not do?

• How is communication done? What are the agreements and expectations within the group?

• How do you plan to do it? Are there any experiments you wish to perform?

Resources (Which resources - human, financial, technical, organizational, knowledge - can we use?)

• People

• Money

• Organizational knowledge

• Great tools to increase productivity are: Fiverr.com, Balsamiq, Freelancer.com

• Other? The only limitation is your own imagination

Accountability (Who makes the decisions, how are standards of performance evaluated and under which circumstances is the target reached?)

• Define the organizational structure, decision structure, roles and responsibility and mainly: who decides what?

• When is the project considered finalized? How do you ensure a quality project?

• Which metrics do you use to measure the project and its quality?

Consequences (what will happen - good and bad - as a result of evaluation)

• What happens when the project outcome is considered good?

• What happens when the project outcome is considered bad?

• How is this measured?