The Eyes Have It

Recently, I took my mom in for the second of some planned outpatient surgeries on her eyes.  The first one didn't go as well, and so she was experiencing a lot of double vision.  Always the optimist, I tried to encourage her that her upcoming Hawaii trip would allow her to see twice as much tropical beauty, but she didn't buy it.  Hence, the second surgery successfully brought both eyes back into alignment so she's seeing one of everything again.  (Just don't introduce her to any identical twins in the near future... it might freak her out, okay?)

One of the reasons why many projects derail is because of the exact same issue my mom was experiencing... different vision from different stakeholders.  There was a great article recently by Satya Narayan Dash on the PM Hut blog about this very phenomenon.  Comparing three projects, Dash concluded that project success is not the same as project management success, and shared three points of consideration:

1. Define target success for the project and the project manager
2. Define target success for the organization considering the project involved
3. Define failure for the project and the project manager

Recently, I facilitated a half day session where senior managers were sharing their views on integrating their business functions.  While they had fairly specific visions of what they were striving for, there were open doors for misinterpretation.  Who hasn't had a misstep in defining what "user friendly" or "open access" mean for different stakeholders?  When you define the target success, make sure you use specific criteria and are as objective as possible in the outcomes.  My preference is to list criteria as simple yes/no results (either the project solution meets the requirement or it doesn't).  Then weigh the specific criteria to score the overall project success.  To do anything less is the project management equivalent of what my mom experienced with her vision - the eyes will be shooting in different directions and you'll wind up with organizational double vision.

This is one area where a wise project manager will leverage the skills of a solid business analyst to help in the definition.  It will keep your project vision in alignment.

Also, make sure the discussion about success and failure criteria is held at the beginning of the project (preferably during initiation or no later than planning).  To define these criteria at the end of the project will ensure one thing:  failure.

Carpe Factum!