The Art of Building a Great Project Foundation: 2 Critical Areas Every Project Needs At Its Start

By Peter Taylor, international keynote speaker, author of “The Lazy Project Manager.”

This is the first part in a three-part blog series on the journey of a successful project.

There is a well-known project maxim that says, “Projects don’t fail at the end. They fail at the beginning.”

Failure at the beginning is just harder to spot and hurts a lot less, for a while at least.

In my book, “The Lazy Project Manager,” I speak to this under the heading of “Ahead of the Game,” where I argue that all project managers need to start the way they mean to carry on and carry on the way they mean to finish.

Typically, when a project manager arrives at the start of a shiny brand new project, they will enter at a point in time that is full of peace and love and general wellbeing between all parties involved. The sales cycle will be out of the way, if external suppliers are involved, the celebration parties will still be fond memories, and everyone will believe that this is going to be a fantastic success with glory for all involved just around the corner. This project will be different from all the other projects.

Chaos reports will be relegated to waste bins and the world will be a smiley, happy one with optimism abounding.

But we all know the reality of project history and the typical phases that projects experience:

• Enthusiasm
• Total Confusion
• Disillusionment
• Search for the Guilty
• Punishment of the Innocent
• Reward and Promotion of the Non-participants

Obviously, you want to avoid this scenario; you want to be a success. Therefore, it is
important to let everyone know that you have arrived and that you require things done the right way, the way that is best for the project. Equally important is that you educate your project team on why this is required and what the benefits are that can be achieved by working your way – for them, for you, and for the project.

There are two critical areas when onboarding clients that absolutely must be done to achieve future project success:

1. Expectation Management: Open alignment during the early project weeks
2. Visibility of Purpose: Team that comes together with a common objective

Understanding what you must do during both of these areas will dictate the future of your projects.

The Journey of Expectation Management

I’m sure you are well experienced in the potentially bad road that a project can go down if you do not have a good, honest, relationship with your clients at the start of the project.
Imagine a road in a forest which separates into two paths at some point. They lead to very different end points, but they seem very similar at first. Sadly, for many projects, this happens very quickly for services providers and clients due to a mix of inaccurate expectations and poor communication. Providers and clients head off in two diverging directions, turning what should be one easy path into two competing paths, and it is really challenging to try and bring the two back together again. These two paths create ill will, low trust levels, and higher costs typically through re-work and wasted time.

Instead, what you want is for the two paths to become one. For the path of client and the path of the supplier to converge, not diverge.

This can be achieved by both parties having open minds and honest communications, with a realization that neither side knows everything about the other and that it will take a few weeks (or more) to reach such a state of joint understanding. There will be times of confusion or lack of clarity, there will be changes to be made and agreed, and there will be opportunities to work toward a better outcome.

But if both parties operate in a spirit of combined learning and common purpose, then a great foundation can be laid.

The Journey of Expectation Management

The Visibility of Purpose

One key to achieving such unity is to ensure, as a project manager, that all team members (and this also includes client and supplier members) understand what I refer to as the “Visibility of Purpose.” What are you all trying to deliver? What are the business benefits? What is the end goal? What value are you aiming for? All of these questions are focused on the intent of the project and should guide it from its beginning.

I have often assessed projects and looked at this aspect. What I have found is that the “core” team – the early resources or project founders, if you like – can easily state this purpose. But what I have also uncovered is that, as project teams ramp up and other resources are added as required, the “purpose” definition and understanding can be swiftly lost. This also means that the best fit team members will need to be found to keep this purpose alive, but I’ll speak to this more in my next blog post.

It is imperative that all team members truly understand what this project aims to deliver for both the business and for the client, and can articulate that purpose easily and with appreciation. Only this will deliver teams that are focused, passionate, and believing in the end state.

Get these two critical aspects of the project foundation right and you will be off to an amazing start on your way to project management success.

Your Next Step in Project Success

This is the foundation for the middle of the project, which you can read about in my second article in the series.

You can also hear more about this by watching my recent webinar with Kantata, “A Look at the Current Impact of the Talent War on PMOs.”