Insights archive

SMART objectives for projects

17 May 2012
Posted by Steve Grudgings

It’s easy to see why new Project Managers sometimes have that “rabbit in the headlights” stare. Grasping their new Prince 2 certificate in their hands, eagerly immersing themselves in their new project, generating reams of stakeholder maps, risk registers, benefits plans, gannt charts and suchlike, but risking losing sight of what they are there to do!

One of the factors that sets Chaucer consultants apart is the confidence and experience to ask two simple questions:

1. What is our objective?
2. What greater purpose does it serve?

I have reviewed many big budget project and programs where key project staff struggle to answer these clearly. 

Is this a big deal? Projects can often be complex multi-facetted amalgams of activities and can therefore be hard to understand.

This goes to the heart of the issue: if you can’t answer these questions for your project, don’t be surprised if your team and stakeholders struggle to engage with and support you. Time spent honing a good objective is rarely wasted.

It’s too complex to fully explore in this blog, but if I had to choose a single fix for this it would be ‘SMART Objectives’.

It’s easy to get confused by the differences between Mission and Vision Statements, Business Needs, Project Objectives, Outcomes or Outputs – step aside from these and take inspiration from an example from the 1960s. The Mission statement for NASA’s Apollo Programme was famously recounted by JFK as:

“To land a man on the moon by the end of the decade and return him safely”

Neat! One sentence, easily recalled, seventeen words that work in many ways– which is where SMART comes in. NASA’s statement was:

S pecific
M easurable
A chievable
R ealistic
T ime bound

You don’t need me to explain – just remember to use SMART rather than appearing to be smart.

Make a Comment

Working the Critical Path back from the Golf Hole

22 Mar 2012
Posted by Steve Grudgings

I may be breaching golfing etiquette with the term ‘golf hole’ but non-golfers like me will understand!

So, what’s golf got to do with Project Management?

A colleague reflected one day that the difference between professional and amateur golfers was that the former “worked back from the green (yes, that’s what the hole is called) to the tee”, not the reverse. When he explained that his observation was in the context of watching good project managers plan their projects, the penny dropped.

My colleague’s view was that golfers’ objectives are clear and professionals visualise the game in reverse as a basis for achieving the objective. Instead of seeing how far they can smash the ball toward the green, they start at the green and plan where they want to be for their final stroke – and continue this process back to the tee.

In project management, much attention is rightly given to defining the critical path and work breakdown structure (WBS) and Chaucer consultants will invariably work these through to build good plans. The point of the golf metaphor is to concentrate on clarifying our end state and the events preceding it – always more difficult to visualise the future than the present!

Standing by the tee, your perspective on the green is obscured by distance and the complications associated with starting – you won’t lose sight of these by going to the green and planning your campaign from there and the result will be a better balanced plan.

We can overdo the golf metaphor, but you should also think about external factors like weather and wind, and check you have the right equipment for all conditions – just as the Chaucer Way reminds you to do.

Make a Comment

Balancing Project Management Delivery

17 May 2011
Posted by Peter Hamilton

As we claw our way out of the recession, there appears to be a degree of nervousness in the business world in relation to embarking on new projects or at least being able to make the right decisions on the direction for new projects. Any failure could have a greater impact than previously experienced. Doesn't this make it even more important to ensure that any project doesn't falter due to poor delivery, poor project management.

No project should  fall off the tightrope in one direction through bad planning or overbalance and fall in the other direction by hesitating too much by over analysing. A good PMO is surely the key to maintaining balance.

3 Comment(s)

Project Management in a Dynamic Environment

18 Apr 2011
Posted by Richard Huggins

While we all know, love or hate the structure brought to projects by methodologies such as Prince2, it is often the reality that we are not presented with a neatly packaged up project remit, or have time to set up a disciplined regime in order to deliver that perfect project. Instead, we often find ourselves walking into an environment of uncertainty where dead-lines have already been missed and stakeholders are seeing failure looming large.

In such cases, there is no honeymoon period, no period of grace. One is typically swamped with information overload as you walk through the door for the first time. The harassed project sponsor will brain dump all the issues, typically not in order of priority and once finished look at you expectantly and say "well"?

This is a sink or swim moment.

Pragmatically bring structure to the chaos.

The danger here is in trying to be seen as pro-active and getting caught up in the frenzy; dealing with the problems head-on in a linear fashion. Before you know it, you will get mired in the detail and lose objectivity and value to the client.

On the other hand, there is neither appetite nor time for full-on project disciplines such as formal detailed project plans, meeting minutes, lovingly crafted and coloured issues log and risks register and the like. You have to bring structure to the chaos in a fit-for-purpose and pragmatic way by being both flexible and creative.

However quickly the work needs to be done, the basic building blocks in professional project management are still essential to success, they just need to be implemented with a strong dose of common sense, which everyone can buy into.

Here are some alternative deliverables that can be used. Note that over time, once the initial haste is over, it is wise to move the content of the dynamic project tools to standard ones, thus protecting the information and re-establishing the audit trail and a sense of stability.

Chaucer's experienced consulting resources, using pragmatic Chaucer Way - Project Management Process; offer tried and tested, common sense solutions for client's urgent Change and Project Management needs. As such, our consultants are capable of delivering in the most dynamic and testing of environments. Contact us for further information.

Make a Comment