It's interesting to take the counterfactual, what it looks like when large projects are run poorly. The answer often looks like:
* Poorly defined goals / definition of success
* Overly-complex plans, slowly executed against
* A focus on issues that aren't the real bottleneck
* Large cost and time overruns
* Project is eventually cancelled
I've had the interesting experience of watching the same type of "transformation" project run twice at similar companies. In the first case, the project was bogged down to the extent that I genuinely updated to believe it wasn't possible to achieve. In the second case, I saw incredible progress / pace with a much smaller team, pushing on all the key points with the right planning, and learned some lessons I wish I'd known on take 1.
This is a good article. Not because it's got some crazy insights or radical suggestions - but because it's pragmatic and sensible advice for any project. It definitely resonates with my experience - the biggest risk is just losing focus or losing track of what you're meant to do.
It's refreshingly free of buzzwords and rigid "process" too!
Yeah the hardest thing is to focus intensely and have a strong vision for what exactly the output should be directionally. The second hardest is actually getting the project finished - that requires sustained intense focus.
Theres nothing more to it than that. Frameworks etc blah blah blah. Who cares. Get the work done.
It's interesting to take the counterfactual, what it looks like when large projects are run poorly. The answer often looks like:
* Poorly defined goals / definition of success
* Overly-complex plans, slowly executed against
* A focus on issues that aren't the real bottleneck
* Large cost and time overruns
* Project is eventually cancelled
I've had the interesting experience of watching the same type of "transformation" project run twice at similar companies. In the first case, the project was bogged down to the extent that I genuinely updated to believe it wasn't possible to achieve. In the second case, I saw incredible progress / pace with a much smaller team, pushing on all the key points with the right planning, and learned some lessons I wish I'd known on take 1.
This is a good article. Not because it's got some crazy insights or radical suggestions - but because it's pragmatic and sensible advice for any project. It definitely resonates with my experience - the biggest risk is just losing focus or losing track of what you're meant to do.
It's refreshingly free of buzzwords and rigid "process" too!
Yeah the hardest thing is to focus intensely and have a strong vision for what exactly the output should be directionally. The second hardest is actually getting the project finished - that requires sustained intense focus.
Theres nothing more to it than that. Frameworks etc blah blah blah. Who cares. Get the work done.