The Case for Treating Programs Like a Football Season

Organizations often evaluate programs and projects with a rigid, binary mindset, they’re either successes or failures. This black and white thinking can be problematic, especially in complex environments where goals evolve, priorities shift, and outcomes vary. To address this, let’s consider an alternative approach: treating programs like a football season.

You might wonder why I’m equating programs to football, especially since programs typically last much longer than a football season. The analogy works because a football season involves a series of matches with varied outcomes: wins, losses, and draws where each match contributes to the team's overall performance. By adopting a similar perspective, organizations can redefine how they assess success and failure in their programs.

Understanding the Football Season Analogy

A football season consists of various competitions: league matches, cup tournaments, and international games with teams playing anywhere between 20 to 40 matches (give or take). The exact number isn’t the point. What matters is that no team wins every single match. Even the best teams with superstars like Cristiano Ronaldo, Lionel Messi, or Manuel Neuer face defeats, draws, and tough games where a win isn’t their best performance.

The key takeaway here is that a team’s success isn’t defined by one game but by the cumulative performance over the entire season. Similarly, organizations need to view programs as a series of projects, each with its own outcome. Not every project will be a home run, and that’s okay. What matters is how the overall program aligns with strategic goals.

In football, teams know they won’t win every game. Instead, they set realistic expectations and establish what counts as a win, a loss, or a draw. Organizations should adopt this mindset by defining what success, failure, and partial success (a draw) look like for their programs and projects.

Without a clear definition of these outcomes, assessing program performance becomes subjective and directionless. It’s like trying to determine whether a football season was successful without knowing the team's goals or the league's rules.

Setting the Rules at the Start

In football, the rules of the game are established before the season begins (I know it's set in stone). Teams agree on the competition format, points system, and other parameters. Similarly, organizations need to define program goals, evaluation criteria, and performance metrics at the outset.

For example:

• What constitutes success for the entire program?
• How will you measure progress and outcomes?
• What’s an acceptable level of failure?

Imagine the football authorities changing its scoring rules halfway through the season, it would be chaotic and unfair.

Embracing the Bandwidth for Losses

Football teams accept that they won’t win every match. They analyse losses, learn from them, and adjust their strategies for the next game. Organizations should take a similar approach by creating a bandwidth for losses. Not every project will succeed, and that’s fine as long as the overall program delivers value.

Rather than fearing failure, organizations should embrace it as part of the process. What matters is the ability to learn, adapt, and improve over time. Just as a football team reviews its performance after every match, organizations should create multiple check-points to identify lessons learned and apply them to future initiatives.

The Bigger Picture: Measuring Success?

At the end of a football season, success is measured holistically. Did the team achieve its goals? Did it improve from the previous season? Did it build a stronger foundation for the future?

Organizations should evaluate programs with a similar long-term view. Instead of focusing solely on individual project outcomes, they should consider the program's overall impact:

• Did the program contribute to the organization's strategic goals?
• Did it enhance capabilities or processes?
• Did it create value for stakeholders?

By taking a broader perspective, organizations can move away from a binary success/failure mindset and adopt a more nuanced approach to program evaluation.

Score….

Treating programs like a football season encourages organizations to embrace a realistic, flexible approach to success. Not every project will be a win, and that’s okay. What matters is how the overall program performs and whether it delivers long-term value.

By defining wins, losses, and draws upfront, setting clear rules, and creating a bandwidth for failure, organizations can foster a culture of continuous improvement. Just like football teams, they can learn from every game—and come back stronger for the next season.