What Drives The Getting Predictable℠ Best Practices?
It’s all in the phrase: From the Start. I am frequently asked how the Getting Predictable Best Practices got started.
Getting Predictable℠ best practices cross many subject areas including requirements collection, tracking project progress, facilitation techniques, providing estimates that drive confidence, and so on. With such a wide array of practice areas, you’re probably wondering what binds them together. In other words, is there a common theme or vision that drives current and future best practices and recommendations? The answer is YES – there is indeed a common theme. And, as you guessed, this blog post reveals the vision aligns Getting Predictable℠ in all of its many flavors from discovery to definition through execution.
From the Start
Getting Predictable℠ is a collection of best practices that set teams up for success from the start.
Wow! How profound! (Yes, I am being sarcastic at the moment but there’s truth here as well) For the majority of my career I have been on the client side of consulting relationships. I have heard some pretty big promises and I tend to be very skeptical. As I read my own description of Why Getting Predictable℠ exists, it’s hard not to think how empty it sounds! So let me explain. Let’s pretend we have a project kicking off and we have approximately four weeks to collect the overall requirements so the technical team can begin their planning and staffing of the project. So we e set up meeting with key stakeholders and business users for the first week in March to kick off the requirements gathering. The business is extremely busy and coordinating their schedules is like herding cats. All too frequently, you do not get full traction and commitment from the team during the first few days. In fact, it is possible that you might not get to full throttle until the second week of the four week schedule. Since we didn’t pad our four week plan, this lost time needs to be addressed. It is important for us to be adaptive and stay on schedule despite losing three to five days at the beginning. I want to emphasize that is not a rare situation. Especially when launching a new initiative. Would you agree?
Let’s take a different perspective…
Let me share a different way to view this. It may be a day here or a day there, but if we actually lose four to five days getting up to speed across the four weeks, we have lost 25% of schedule. We are potentially 25% late and over budget for this phase. And we haven’t even started yet! Here is my point: Although most of our leaders and managers would never intentionally handicap or put the team at risk, they are unaware that missing a meeting or pushing a date is actually doing harm to the team. If this story, in one flavor or another, resonates with you, then your success and the success of your project are being put at risk from the very start of your project. Why does this happen?
It’s all about the frog
If you put a frog in boiling water, it will immediately jump out. It’s way too hot. But if you put a frog in room-temperature water, and very slowly turn up the heat to a simmer, the frog will stay in its comfortable hot tub until it perishes. Ouch! On your project, it may only be a day here or a few folks there, not available, but before you know it, your project is starting to simmer. So let me repeat:
Getting Predictable℠ is a collection of best practices that set teams up for success from the start.
Getting Predictable best practices identify and address the situations, activities and events, that can slowly handicap the teams chances of success before they even get going.
Now You’ve Got My Attention. Tell Me More.
Getting Predictable℠ Best Practices cover the gambit: Discovery, definition, execution, and organizational effectiveness models. In this blog, I focus on the best practices that address defining and launching a project or initiative. I call this set of best practices Getting Predictable℠ Definition. Getting Predictable℠ Definition addresses the three key areas that impact a project right from the start:
- Alignment: Driving alignment around project success across all stakeholders.
- Commitment: Developing estimates and plans the team can commit and manage to.
- Visibility: Having a common view of progress as well as a a common definition of when the team has delivered on the defined project objectives.
In my next posts, I will discuss each of these areas in detail so you can see there is a method to the madness of Setting Teams Up For Success FROM THE START.
Category: Defining Success, For Decisionmakers, For Practitioners, Requirements Definition, Team Performance