Taking Projects from Good to Great

In my excitement to start the New Year, I began by writing a detailed list of what I hope to achieve this year. It’s a far cry from my high school days, when I once found myself sweating bullets at 10pm, with less than 12 hours to hand in a paper I had been given three weeks to write. With a sleepless night and a copy of To Kill A Mockingbird by my side, I somehow managed to get it done.? Since then, I’ve learned that when I am doing something I actually enjoy, I not only perform better, but tend to do things faster, even without any “due dates”.?

My fascination with starting and finishing meaningful projects grew from there. Last summer, I had a chance to research the effectiveness of? WEF (World Economic Forum) projects, thanks to my mentor Utkarsh Amitabh. I jumped to learn how the best-of-the-best bring a large scale mission to life.?

In a matter of 7 weeks, I analyzed over 470 of the projects that the WEF Global Shaper Hubs had executed across the globe. I created my own system of categorizing what and ranking the projects based on a green-yellow-red color system based on what was promised vs. what was delivered (green met the promise, red did not, and a combination of factors made a project “yellow”). Over time I saw something interesting among all the most successful projects. The best projects started with a few things: clear goals, solid metrics for success, and a tangible reason behind why the team that did it was the best for the job.?

Reflecting on it now, I think there are a few core factors that will define how many projects and initiatives in 2025 and beyond will perform:

1) A Clear, Meaningful Promise

?????The Superstar WEF projects I categorized had a mission that was easy to understand and addressed an important issue. But the core difference that separated the stellar vs. subpar was that the goals of the great projects actually had some meaningful implications if achieved. Many of the projects had simple and measurable goals (posting on social media, hosting zoom discussions, etc.), yet the ‘promise’ lacked a meaningful purpose.???

A good number of the projects across the hubs had metrics that essentially measured repetitions of a task. When one shaper hub said they would post 5 times over 2 weeks and met the goal, they noted it was a “success”. However, the quality of the posts, impact, and even viewership of these campaigns was questionable (some posts were viewed less than 200 times).?While these projects checked the boxes, they often failed to create any new insight or engagement from the community.?

On the other hand, some projects inspired collaboration with their mission and execution. In these projects, progress could be seen not in repetition, but evolution of the task. One example is Books that Heal from the Accra Hub (in Ghana).? They had a noble mission to tell the stories of kids suffering a variety of illnesses in books to help them learn about it. The organization went beyond their expectations and received almost 1000 books as donations and even partnered with Spring-Up Global Network to expand their initiatives. Another of the Accra Hub’s projects called “My First Job” achieved 60% job placement in the first 3 months for early career graduates, which led to the Accra hub winning the WEF’s “Global Shaper Innovation Prize”.?

The Accra hub is a shining example of what happens when realistic goals that have a clear impact are met, and then exceeded once the “required work” is done.?

2) Turning the Macro into Micro

All Global Shaper projects aim to address large-scale, macro issues such as poverty, climate change and education.? However, even the differences in mission statements are shocking. Some projects in the poverty alleviation sector claim that they want to “end world hunger” or “house the homeless” which is great in theory, but not something any one organization can do and measure effectively.

The Mumbai Hub’s project dubbed “Bottle Bricks” attacked the problem in a much more practical way. The founder, Krushnaa Patil, recruited help from over 1500 kids in 50 schools in partnership with the organization GreenLine to make 7000 eco-bricks. This solution was brilliant since the kids were able to participate and learn about eco-friendly solutions, while also providing critical support to scale the project.?There was an immediate tangible result (bricks) and a longer-term, intangible one (inspiring kids to think about the issue and create new solutions).

The real lesson that this project taught me was that while issues like poverty are wide-reaching, a laser focus as an individual on making one aspect better to the highest degree goes a lot further than trying to tackle everything at once. With many minds like Patil’s taking on one aspect of an issue at a time, the macro picture does change significantly over time.?

3) Accountability on and off the Field

I’m as guilty as anyone else of doing the absolute bare minimum to get the desired result – my numerous? “A-” grades in high school is a reminder of that! But that simply isn’t enough when there are stakes at play for real people. When I took tennis lessons in elementary school, my teacher told me that what I do outside the court is as important as how I play.? As an adult, I recognize this lesson in many aspects of my life.?

I hate to dredge up the Ghosts of Covid Past - that terrifying era of face coverings and endless Netflix. In the midst of all the chaos, the Banglore Hub led an effort with almost 20 other hubs across India and neighboring countries to form the “Make And Sew Kindness” or M.A.S.K mission (clever, right?).??

With an amazing amount of coordination thousands of masks were created and distributed through a large-scale team effort of many hubs at once. The project went a step further and created jobs in the process, employing the help of The Pink Foundation to get women of various backgrounds to grow skill development and educate them about the health standards during that era to protect their families.?

This project was a standout because all the hubs involved gave a sincere effort, tracked their results, and consistently went an extra step to confirm that what they were doing was contributing to their mission over the whole period this project was in commission. For this project, taking accountability meant that even after metrics were met, they were constantly checked on and improved after the fact. I have a strong feeling that my tennis coach would be proud if he learned about this project.?

Conclusion

Overall, archiving and making a system to rank these WEF projects made it obvious that good work is easier to identify when it meets these three outlines. Some of the less-shiny projects also served their own lesson: achieving goals is not the same as achieving impact.?

If we can set goals for our upcoming New-Year's resolutions that are clear and have impact if met, take the “big picture” one step at a time, and allow us to go above and beyond even after they are met, I think we can make a lot of things work better.?

Here are some references if you want to learn more about the awesome WEF projects I highlighted in this article:?

Books that Heal (Accra):?https://www.booksthatheal.org/

Bottle Bricks (Mumbai):?https://gsmumbaihub.wixsite.com/boto

M.A.S.K Project (Bangalore and More):?https://medium.com/global-shapers-bangalore/make-and-sew-kindness-or-the-m-a-s-k-project-by-global-shapers-bangalore-664bef06a486