Perfect Project? I’m not laughing now!
Eddie Obeng MBA, PhD, FAPM, PPL, Qubot
Add The Eddie Obeng Experience to Guarantee Your Entire Event, Ensure Take-Aways are Applied | New World Enterprise Polymath, Best-selling Author, TED Speaker, QUBE #VR Campus | Inspire-Educate-Provoke to Act |
I laughed out loud, with a snort. Simon Cooper my long-time client had demanded, “Eddie, we’ve implemented the art-of- new-world-project-management tricks you taught us and improved so now we’d like to make all our projects 100% successful”.
Why did I laugh? It’s not funny. My world view had cracked. Sure project success could improve. I’d written a book on it. But it had never crossed my paradigm-bounded mind that all projects could be perfect – zero defect! The craic let in the light of curiosity.
Like Tinkerbell, perfect projects die because we don’t believe they can exist.
Weeks and interviews later and I’d found key reasons why we tolerate the failure of projects. Worse, we sabotage them ourselves. Here are some:
Like Tinkerbell, perfect projects die because we don’t believe they can exist.
We don’t even try. Do it and tell everyone it’s possible.
Project people are optimists. They prefer the bustle of activity to the calm of prelimination.
We eagerly look forward to challenges and surprises. Make the challenge to spot issues and resolve them in advance
Now take a look at your culture and practices - Which option is you.
Organisations reward bad behaviour – Who do you remember? Promote?
A. Project lead who battles risks, presents issues to the board and then puts out fires! #Hero?
B. Project lead delivers trouble-free (You never met them and can’t remember their name).
We give no incentive to fix issues before they arise. Seek out and reward the quietly competent
Project people are optimists. They prefer the bustle of activity to the calm of prelimination.
Organisations deceive themselves on the ease of project delivery - Which gets’ the green light to proceed?
领英推荐
A. Project looks clearly specified. It has a long, well-presented business case.
B. Project that acknowledges that the business case is an estimate. Learning during execution is expected. Organisational politics will undermine progress. Metrics are meaningless and requires contingency?
We pretend foggy/complex projects are painting-by-numbers - Encourage honesty
Organisations use old-world method of project-control-by-review (guiding the future by looking through the rear-view mirror) – Which one are senior executives keener to have?
A. A review meeting on progress-to-date that holds the project lead’s feet to the fire
B. A workshop with a focus on upcoming challenges and how they will be overcome in advance?
We look to the past to guide us - Adopt a zero-defect methodology
As projects continue to fail at high rates, I’m not laughing now!
The new edition of my best selling book All Change! Has new sections on, How to Transform', and 'How to Deliver Perfect Projects'
Book an early copy now [email protected]
Semi-Retired Chartered Chemical Engineer and Containment Specialist
8 个月Leaving aside whether they are actually possible, the perfect project may not be good for developing flexible people and processes. If you believe the saying “Experience is what you get when you don’t get what you want”, then unless you’re happy with people blindly repeating the processes followed on the previous perfect example and then being demoralised when something goes horribly wrong because not all projects are the same are they. If the procedures previously worked to perfection then it must be the people who screwed up (thinks the sponsor team).
Oh so true, in all walks of life at all levels 'find' a fire, put it out, hero ? We all need to value organisation and forsight more - planning and pro-active risk management anyone ? ??
United Nations Operations
8 个月Perfect Eddie, still laughing… ?? I met one of the hero-types once, the project seniors had somehow overlooked that in the midst of all this heroic fire-fighting, it was the ‘hero’ who was setting light to bits of the project to start with! Your words are magificently hilarious and yet simultaneously depressingly thought-provoking. Why do organisations consistently choose the worse option? Is organisational culture devouring good project practice’s strategic breakfast?
Dad. Change Agent. Facilitator. Strategist. Linkybrain PM @ Scottish Enterprise & Hon. Executive Fellow Uni@Aberdeen
8 个月Building on this... We will see it when we believe it... Let's celebrate the unsung project hero's that do develop and deliver without panics and firefighting... And with teams /processes that they leave behind to continue the work.... My nomination for the Franck Hall of Change Makers .... Sanjeev Gupta for his recent work turning a mine into a goldmine.
Teacher & Coach in Projects and Procurement
8 个月It all depends on what the organisation sees as "perfect" and as a "failure". If they want projects to run to a script like a play, then they have IMO the wrong view. Projects should be more like improvisation than a play. Try, experiment, change direction, continuously improve. If we are not missing some targets, maybe they are not stretching enough?