Juggling Projects With Forgotten Strategies - By Vijay Aluwalia

Vijay is the Principal and Founder of VARUNE Project Leadership, a firm focusing on Leadership Development and Project and Change Management consulting.With over 17 years of project management and consulting experience across the United Kingdom, Ireland, Portugal, India and the USA with major companies, Vijay is esteemed among clients and peers as an “Exceptionally well qualified instructor of project management practices & processes - energetic, engaging and knowledgeable”.

Vijay received his Master of Business Administration (MBA) from the Cranfield School of Management, UK, is a Certified Project Management Professional (PMP®), a Certified Business Analysis Professional™ (CBAP®), a Certified Professional Coach (CPC) and an Energy Leadership™ Index Master Practitioner (ELI-MP).

State of Project Success

32% of all projects are delivered on time, on budget, with required features and functions. 44% are challenged, which are late, over budget, and/or with less than the required features and functions. 24% fail, which are cancelled prior to completion or delivered and never used) .

Consider the huge number of projects being worked on, the colossal investment in resources and the bitter disappointment when so many of the initiatives fail to deliver. How will organizations remain competitive and efficient with such troublesome results? If your organization has unlimited resources and is not accountable, then perhaps this is of little importance to you. For the rest of us, it should be top of mind.

Why so much failure?

So why is there such turmoil in successfully implementing projects? From my experience, organizations are typically trying to push far too many projects forward. There seems to be a genuine concern for driving results, a desire to step up and take on responsibility. Yet between business units there is often a severe lack of clarity as to which projects truly support their strategy.

Inefficient processes, frustrating systems, unhappy senior management and overzealous and ambitious managers all tend to breed new projects, along with a tendency to try and help others and be seen as a team player. This leads to additional projects being born and an overall belief that positive energy and attitude will win the day. This however, leads to lack of focus on implementing the strategy. Many of the key aspects of delivering projects successfully are ignored or short-changed. And the current environment of doing more with less creates enormous stress on the teams responsible for delivering results.

How to give yourself a better chance of success

1. Identify the current universe of projects, both being worked on and desired.

• Getting arms around what is being worked on and what is in the pipeline is key for effective decision making. Not having a complete picture of the projects is equivalent to catering for a dinner without knowing how many guests are turning up. Success will be limited.

2. Clearly link the expected value of the project to the strategic objectives.

• Projects can give birth from so many different places and many times without little thought. It’s imperative for the organization to clearly identify those projects that contribute to the strategy set and what value each project will provide. All other projects are open to being cancelled or postponed. Identify what resources are needed for these strategically oriented projects. This data will help in the decision making process of the order of working on projects and which ones can be cancelled or postponed.

3. Create a decision making process for prioritizing projects.

• Everyone will fight for their projects to be worked on. There has to be some order, unless the organization has unlimited resources. Implementing a process for deciding priority and including the appropriate stakeholders in this process ensures a common understanding of project activity and clear focus.

4. Conduct a gap analysis on the resource requirements against higher priority projects. Then get the resources you need to succeed.

• Even with a prioritized list of projects, resources may not exist to realize the identified project benefits. Either additional resources will be required or projects will need to be de-scoped or postponed. Having data available makes this a more palatable and solution-oriented discussion.

5. Implement a process for how projects are initiated, delayed, accelerated and cancelled.

• Funnel all new projects through a project evaluation process. Develop a culture of discipline around project initiatives. Making exceptions will make a mockery of the process. Hold your ground.

6. Involve team members from various groups in the entire process.

• Any project leadership orientated activity taken in isolation will lead to anguish. Projects are a team sport and not for solo heroes. No shortcuts allowed here.

7. Get buy-in from senior management throughout.

• Everything will fail if you do not have support of senior management throughout the project lifecycle. This is the biggest risk of all. No buy-in and support will lead to absolute chaos and a devastating impact on the implementation of the strategy.

8. Make the data visible.

• Considering all the points above, show the facts. Colleagues will be so much more supportive if they see the bigger picture; the way decisions are made and their impact will be understood. Develop an open environment and share as much as possible. Your plan will be embraced, and the atmosphere becomes ‘we’ rather than ‘you and us’.

9. Have the courage to make tough decisions and get senior management to support compliance.

• Change is not naturally accepted by individuals. When modifying ‘the way things are done around here’, you may have carefully followed a change management program, but there will be times when tough decisions will need to be made. Make them with conviction and get support for maintaining compliance.

Implementing the points above builds a good foundation for implementing the strategy for your project team, which should support the entire organization’s strategy. The points above will answer the key question of ‘Which projects should be worked on’? Now, ensuring these key projects are successfully implemented is another challenge. ‘How is success maximized on projects undertaken’? is another topic for discussion.