Set up projects for success
Ever felt a project is a slow-motion car crash? It’s usually a problem of project definition. Poorly defined projects drift off course, consume more time and resources than planned, and underdeliver. The most effective way to get and keep teams on track is to create a simple project charter. Here are the critical elements to such a charter:
1. The charter should be short, simple and standardized. A good charter fits on one page with 12+ point font. It can be presentation style or document style. There should be a template, an example of what good looks like, and a guide that describes who fills out which section and why.
2. The charter should be completed by leaders AND team members.
a. Leaders should write why the project is important and what their key hypotheses are. After all, if they are asking people to commit significant amounts of time, they should openly declare their justifications and beliefs.
b. Teams should define timelines, summarize key facts and define project guardrails. This ensures everyone knows what is already known, what is in scope, and how long the team plan to work.
3. The charter should address 3 critical questions:
a. What is the problem to solve? Writing problem statements is a skill, blog coming soon!
b. What does success look like? Described in terms you can visualize and measure.
c. What are the killer issues? Teams often avoid these if not declared - financial viability is a repeat offender with technical teams!
4. The charter should be mutually agreed in a joint review and approval meeting. It is better to take more time driving to clarity and agreement than to leave items ambiguous.
5. Use the charter aggressively to prevent scope creep. Scope creep is a natural consequence of human dynamics as people generate new ideas, tangents and rabbit holes. Sometimes it is in the interests of everyone to change scope, but that should be an active, joint decision by leaders and teams where all scope change implications are fully laid out and understood.
