Conducting Execution – a science or an art?

A quote by Edison goes something like: “strategy without execution is hallucination” or “vision without execution is delusion”! In the Corporate world, there is always a huge emphasis on how to execute more productively and more efficiently.? We create & re-create organization structure, define & re-define leadership roles & accountability matrices, adopt various project management frameworks & tools to find that elusive magic formula that will enable us to excel at executing all our strategies, meet all our goals, and stay fully aligned as an organization. But what happens practically?

In most corporate situations, we see that even when highly skilled teams are formed with well-defined roles, responsibilities, and work assignments; yet there are challenges in conducting the overall execution of a project. ?Sometimes, there is ambiguity around who is in-charge of the end-to-end execution; other times there are doubts around the effectiveness of the person in charge. Though there is a structured corporate discipline around “project management” and several literature/trainings are available to master various tools & techniques of running projects; but templatized application of any project management framework often falls short in real-world scenarios. Success in any role involving conducting execution, demands a nuanced perspective beyond predefined roles and disciplines. I am trying to outline what I believe “conducting execution” involves; not looking at it as a specific job role, nor as a functional discipline.

Key Components – The Goal & The Plan

Whether it is a business strategy or a personal aspiration, the vision becomes tangible only when we are able to break it down to achievable goals. A goal can be anything like (a) developing a new App, (b) running a new marketing campaign, (c) recruiting and structuring a new team, (d) organizing an event, or (e) hosting a dinner at home. To meet the goal, we need to chart out a plan to follow. It could be a full-fledged software development project plan or for a goal of hosting a dinner, the plan would be simply the to-do list made on a piece of paper kept on your kitchen counter.

Now, if you are in charge of executing the plan, in whatever role you are – a project or program manager, or a development manager, or a functional head, or the head chef in the family kitchen; your approach should cover both the systematic hard-skills as well as the abstract soft-skills.?

Key Concepts for Execution

Systematic skills are all that you learn under project management discipline. Beyond the systematic project management skills, certain intangible aspects are critical for conducting execution. You can choose the best suited project management framework (e.g Scrum, Kanban etc) for your purpose. You can choose to align the standard project life cycle stages (Initiation, Planning, Execution, Monitoring, Closure) with further granular phases (e.g. SDLC, PDLC), as per your specific project type.

Whichever framework or structure you adopt; there are 4 key concepts to any execution –

A.????? Getting your Scope bounded ?

B.????? Getting your Schedule thorough

C.??????Managing all Constraints along the way

D. Effectively Communicating in every direction

Getting your Scope bounded is about being able to articulate an unambiguous outcome at the end of the schedule and provide clarity about how we are measuring success of the stated outcome. You would apply techniques like – how to identify stakeholders, experts and create the RACI matrix; how to document requirements and articulate user stories; how to define and measure KPIs, lay-out the quality control processes and align stakeholders to sign-off on the outcome and the success criteria.

Now the crux is this – as opposed to doing all the above mechanically, first you can focus your attention to acutely grasp the big-picture. Ask yourself the following:

1. Am I really convinced why this goal is important, and what is the impact of not doing it?
2. Amongst the stakeholders identified, do I understand who all would benefit and how?
3. Amongst the leaders in the organization, do I know who might have a concern and why?
4. For all the assumptions made, can I personally assess the chances of these being wrong?
5. Do I fully understand the interplays of all the constraints – whether it is market-condition, technological challenge, or people related?

If the answer to any of these is “no” or “not sure”, ask questions, interact, communicate, research – till you turn them to “yes”. Tighter your grasp is on the big-picture, better you would be in bounding your scope.?This intangible aspect of your approach will make a huge difference in your expertise of execution.

Getting your Schedule thorough is about breaking down all tasks big or small, and having them pragmatically dated with all dependencies mapped. You would apply techniques like structuring granular phases in the project life cycle like design, discovery, and review phases; creating thorough task break down lists and methodical effort estimation against each task; budgeting and resource allocation; computing and managing the critical path etc.

A schedule once made, functions as the reference guide for execution. Beyond all systematic checks of creating a robust schedule, are there any subtle intangible aspect to check on?

1. Why is the timeline important in the bigger picture? What worst happens if we miss it?
2. What is the primary driver of the target end date of the schedule – a client commitment? a regulatory requirement? any related dependency with other projects in the organization?
3. If there was no external dependency and no internal constraints, what is the ideal timeline this project should have based on sheer volume of effort involved?
4. Which are the tasks/ areas where you are scheduling either too tight or too relaxed?
5. Who are the critical team members whose knowledge/skill/expertise are irreplaceable?

Understanding answers to these questions would equip you to create a schedule which is practical and flexible at the same time. With an eye on the big picture, you would be able to somewhat rank priorities of the tasks and schedule them tight or lenient based on this intuitive ranking.

While dependencies in the schedule can be systematically mapped in a tool, your insight into the actual impact beyond the schedule of this project, allows you to view dependencies from an innovative perspective. You would be able to leverage key people and key partnerships outside your project team, to ease out certain dependencies that seemed like hard dependencies otherwise. ?

Managing Constraints along the way encompasses the “tracking” part of project management once you have a plan. But it’s not just about monitoring progress by running the ceremonies of “status meetings”. It is about being aware of all the practical scenarios that potentially may derail the schedule or impact the outcome; and being able to spot in time when the potential risk becomes real, then being able to creatively find solution to mitigate the impact. ?The guidelines around status meeting ceremonies like “daily scrum”, “sprint review/ retrospective” provide the framework to capture all such risks and mechanisms to adjust schedules to accommodate new tasks etc.

But what more than these systematic know-hows can set you apart as an expert in execution? It is the intangible aspect of “contextual detail orientation”.

The hardest job for anyone in charge of the act of project execution is to understand the details of every task so well that s/he can assess what is really the biggest risk or roadblock that has the most impact on the successful progress of the plan. Understanding some level of details on every task in the plan is crucial so that any superficial decision is not made on which risk is critical. The person in charge of the execution needs to be comfortable with all aspects of the domain, technology, function, strategy that the project is all about.? There will be experts from each of these areas involved in the team that’s collectively executing the project. But the person in charge of execution, must get into enough detail in order to be able to communicate effectively with the experts and develop the expertise of “foresight” to prevent and mitigate blockers and real risks in time.

Effectively Communicating in every direction, involves two-way interactions - one for you to keep absorbing the context appropriately and two for you to communicate back effectively. Mastering the art of communication is most important aspect of conducting execution as the outcome of a project can get drastically impacted if the communication is not adequate.

Systematic skills to acquire involves how to create a visually impactful status report. A good status report is what visually highlights the following summary: (a)?Are we on track per the plan? (b)?If not, what is the biggest roadblock or potential risk? (c)?Do we have a revised plan or proposed steps to address it? (d) Whose help is needed for the proposed steps to be executed?

Beyond the status reporting skill, the aspect of communication involves continually assessing if perspective has changed for any stakeholders. For the vested stakeholders at a level away from the ground level, this status report is the only way to know how they can add value towards achieving the stated goal. You need to consciously pay attention to:

1. Do all stakeholders understand the accurate status or are they having some incorrect perception?
2. Did any new constraint appear based on the change in perspective of a critical stakeholder?
3. Is there any change in external or internal circumstances that may have altered the importance of the goal itself and hence altered the priority of the project at large?

Any change to the initial context must be gracefully accommodated. In most practical scenarios, contextual changes are subtle, and they do not pose themselves as a defined “change” to be addressed in the framework of “change management”. The person in charge of conducting execution needs to develop that acumen to recognize such subtle contextual shifts; and then to communicate effectively to bring everyone in the same page.

Conclusion

Effective use of project management frameworks, tools & techniques is a science. Application of leadership soft skills to take charge and own the outcome, is an art.?Conducting Execution in any role, requires a combination of both. ?Understanding context at every step of the way and adapting to the evolving context is a capability that is difficult to teach or measure as a skill.

I believe the approach to execution is very personal to everyone. I hope that my views on certain intangible aspects, expressed through this article will conceptually resonate with others and will help in some way in their own personal approach of excelling at conducting execution!