New Year Resolutions for your Project Portfolio

Happy New Year! At the start of a new year we often take a good look at ourselves and make resolutions. Some are about stopping bad habits and some are about forming good ones. Many of us will sign up for a gym membership, and get a personal trainer to craft a plan for us.

Why not do the same for your Project Portfolio? Many enterprises are half way through their annual plan, while others might just be starting a new slate. What would a Personal Trainer do for your project portfolio?

Set Realistic Goals

Any good Personal Trainer will work with their client to understand their goals. They will be realistic about what can be achieved, and when it can be achieved. The goals should be challenging but attainable.

Go through your projects and, for each project, look at its goals. Are they clearly aligned to your strategy? Have the goals shifted over time? It’s fine if they have, but we need to be confident that the goals and strategy stay aligned. If the goals have drifted off course, now is the time to change direction and refocus.

Resolution: Every project has clear goals aligned to strategy

Resolution: Every team member knows the goals and knows the strategy

Be Honest

If you’re trying to lose a few kilos, it’s not the daily weigh-in that matters. It’s the week-on-week trend. Do you have objective measures in place for all your projects? 

Look at progress against plans. Are you still on track? Is the project delivering valuable outcomes? Or has it become a bit flabby around the middle and dropped off the pace? If so, it’s time to look at what the causes are.

Having clear success criteria is a critical success factor. Make sure they are in place, and are driving conversations.

Resolution: Progress against plans is visible and triggers actions

Resolution: Every project has visible, clear success measures

Resolution: Success measures are evaluated regularly

Interval Training

Is every project working in fixed iterations (sprints)? Look for iterations with clear targets that are largely being achieved. Be suspicious when the iterations drift, or commitments keep flowing silently from one iteration to the next. 

One great practice is to make sure your projects are doing a simple demo or showcase at fixed intervals: “Here’s what we set out to do. Here’s what we did. This is why there’s a difference. This is what we’re doing next.”

Make sure that iterations give you a feedback loop towards success.

Resolution: Every project gets something to ‘done’ every iteration

Resolution: Every project holds a showcase every iteration

Resolution: Sponsors and execs attend project showcases frequently

Endurance Work

The best preparation for a marathon is a sustainable training plan, executed rigorously. Intervals are great, but the overall pace must be sustainable, otherwise injury is inevitable.

If your project pace is not sustainable, you might make great strides for an iteration or two, but then injuries will set in. Morale will drop, engagement will fall, and performance will decline.

Is your pace sustainable? Are people going home at a reasonable hour? Are they able to meet social and family commitments? Look for the signs that you’re pushing too hard. Take the pressure off, set more attainable goals, and make it to the finish line.

As a leader, your first duty is to make sure your people have an environment that allows them to be their best.

Resolution: Know who is pushing hard, and who is working unsustainably

Resolution: Make it OK to say ‘we need to back off’

Measure your Progress

If you’re putting in the hard yards – whether at the gym or in the office – the best motivation is progress. Your projects should all be tracking their progress against goals and success criteria. These should be visible to everybody from the project space all the way to the senior exec. Make your progress visible, and people will do amazing things to maintain momentum.

Resolution: All projects have a visible progress board

Resolution: Celebrate success at every milestone

Early Course Correction

If your personal trainer sees problems with your trajectory – maybe you’re not progressing, or perhaps you’re losing motivation – they will work with you to change the plan.

Similarly, if you discover that one of your projects is steering towards the rocks, it’s critical to take early action. Take a structured approach to find out the root cause, reset the direction, rebuild the plan, and give the team what they need to succeed.

Resolution: If the plan isn’t working, change the plan.

Be Part of a Team

If you sign up to the gym on your own, and try to make it without support, you’ll struggle to stay motivated. By February you’ll be going once a week, and by April you’ll have forgotten the after-hours passcode. It takes motivation to stick to something hard. Build a cadre of people to hold each other accountable, and it becomes much harder to quit.

Walk amongst your teams. Talk to them. Make commitments to each other.  Promise to stick to your resolutions together, and when the going gets tough the team will keep going.

Resolution: Hold each other accountable for sticking to the resolutions

Happy New Year!

Work with your teams to create a set of New Year Resolutions for the project. Use the opportunity to have a conversation about goals, success criteria, plans, progress, and the way of working. Have your teams write down their resolutions.

Simply having the discussion and writing down the agreed outcomes will have a powerful refreshing effect, and will give your teams a burst of energy to hit the New Year running.

A Very Happy and Successful New Year to you all!

Charles Randles is a highly experienced Enterprise Delivery Professional. He has led, mentored and coached on programs up to the billion-dollar scale around the world. He believes in building a Culture of Trust that empowers people to be their best. You can contact him on 0430 0135 20 or at charles@charlesrandles.com.