The Secret Killer of Strategic Projects

Strategic projects can fall into a million difficulties, but one thing takes down more projects than any other, and the sooner you prepare for it, the better.

What is the secret killer?

It’s not your presentation skills or budget shortcomings.

It's far more debilitating.

Why strategic projects fail…??

We often start strategic projects with too much optimism.

After bumbling around for a few months trying to figure out how to align your work with all the existing visions, OKRs, and strategic plans, you might regret calling yourself a "strategic" designer.

To complicate matters, you want the whole team to adopt your plan, which is challenging even for something as small as a team-level strategy.

For example, a UX strategy is easily ignored if not done well. UX strategists know what it feels like to have stakeholders ignore their deliverables.

The biggest hurdle in strategic projects is the last hurdle...the one where people either adopt your ideas or ignore them.

Being ignored is a far worse fate for a strategic project than a poorly designed deliverable. At least if you were wrong and get feedback, you can correct your course.

No, it's far worse to be ignored entirely.

After months of work, all you get is crickets ??????

Worst case scenario, their silence means they hate your strategy.

Best case scenario, they simply forgot about you and your strategy.

What can you do?

Bring your decision-makers and teammates into the strategy process! If it's a big project, they’re probably creeping on your work already.

You might as well let them in.

Here are three specific tips that will help you do that:

1.) Build a coalition for the project.

Don’t do anything strategic in a vacuum.

If your team only sees the strategy when it’s done, you’re doing it all wrong. In strategy projects, there shouldn’t be a “handover.”

Try to involve your stakeholders and decision-makers in the strategy design process, even if it’s just a monthly collaborative working session. When people participate in a project, they’re usually more invested in the outcome. The more invested they are in the outcome, the more likely they are to buy in to the results.

2.) Stay a few steps ahead of the team.

Even if you’re taking a collaborative approach, that doesn’t mean you have to go the same speed as your collaborators. If you want to lead the strategy project, your focus should be designing the project plan, which means you’ll need to be ahead of the group.

The best way to do this is to do your homework before collaborating. You’ll need to do some research on your own time before each team working session. That way, you can compare your insights with the team’s insights.

Don’t be afraid to get your hands dirty as you get out ahead of the process. Of course, it helps to know what the project process looks like. Use my Strategy Canvas if this is your first strategy project.

3.) Frame the problem together.

One of the biggest reasons people ignore your strategy is that the stakeholders don’t really “feel” the problem the strategy attempts to solve. You have to feel the pain before you will be invested in a solution.

For example, your colleagues may not realize that churn is your company's biggest problem. Executing a strategy to overcome churn before the team agrees that churn is the right challenge won’t help people get excited by your strategy. Once the team agrees on the diagnosis of churn, everything gets easier.

Just like in regular projects, agreeing on the problem is half the battle, so you should prioritize your strategy research before considering any sort of solution.

Once everyone involved agrees on the problem's diagnosis, you can proceed to the treatment, a.k.a. your strategy deliverable.

Practice strategy with Jeff

Mastering the process behind strategy is the best way to ensure your strategy project works. However, that can be difficult because strategy projects don’t come often.

Your company might go five years before changing strategy, making every strategy project high-risk. How can you prepare?

I developed an online course to help aspiring strategy designers master the strategy process.

Together, we go through the process, and I provide feedback every step of the way. It’s one of the best ways to gain experience designing strategies before you do it for real.

Learn more about the course here.

Until next time, y'all!

-Jeff Humble

#strategicdesign #strategyprojects #strategydesign #uxstrategy

This article was originally published on Jeff's blog. Read the full version here

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