The Key Ingredients for Successful Project and Programme Delivery

There’s no magic wand to wave over a project and guarantee it’ll be perfect. In fact, projects are almost always imperfect. What dictates success in most cases is ensuring the right inputs are in place to guide the project through delivery and towards its strategic outcome. Every project is different, and it’s important to recognise that a project scope and plan need to be shaped around the unique qualities of the organisation. With that said, there are some constants that are virtually always critical to project success. Here’s a few of these…

Define your goals clearly

How can a project team truly deliver to a strategic objective when the goals of the project haven’t been defined clearly? Before a single day of delivery work is done, a project must have clear strategic and operational goals outlined. The scope is a critical aspect of this, ensuring that specific work and outcomes are either part of or excluded from the delivery phase. Acceptance criteria for tech projects is another valuable piece of the puzzle – when the deliverables are completed, will it have met the needs of the business and bring about the intended change? Is the “definition of done” clearly articulated and understood by the project and business?

Each milestone of the project needs to have clear, measurable goals – not simply the end state of the project. Defining goals means they make sense for all stakeholders, the leadership team and, importantly, the delivery team. Goals may need to be broken down and translated into smaller, relatable chunks for delivery, but ultimately, they should ladder up into broader goals as part of the ongoing project governance and reporting process.

Building a great project team

A team of experienced individuals with the specific technical skills that suit the requirements of the project is a huge key to success for any project – having the right people in the right roles at the right time. The more carefully and accurately a project team is resourced, the less demand there is on a project manager to coordinate, upskill and support delivery work. This allows projects to progress faster, more accurately and often, for cheaper. A common mistake is placing inexperienced but seemingly affordable resources onto difficult projects – often leading to the project taking longer and costing more in the long run. 

Building a great team is often about managing a balance of skills, experience and subject matter expertise that together deliver the goods.

Establish project methodology

How will the project be delivered? There are many options and variants of project delivery methodology now, with disciplines like Agile being very popular in the digital space. The answer of which methodology to use lies within the unique characteristics of the project and organisation itself. Some cultures and projects simply suit one approach over another.

Whatever the approach, software/tools and team communication are essential to enabling the project methodology to deliver as intended. There are excellent project management tools to manage sprints, team members’ workloads, milestones and budgets – with great reporting functions to meet governance requirements. But just as important is the team’s ability to stick to the cadence of meetings, retrospectives and communication required to deliver. Skipping over stand-ups or reviews can start to compromise the effectiveness of even the most skilled of project teams, so a PM will be focusing on the pragmatic application of the methodology as much as possible.

Keep the lines of communication open

The lack of communication in a business is responsible for so many of the big, expensive mistakes and challenges they face. While communication itself may seem like a simple concept, it’s all too often ignored as everyone focuses on their immediate tasks and challenges. But when communication is high, there are fewer blind spots, fewer mistakes made and more opportunities for smarter approaches to challenges that may arise. Communication lines are critical between:

• Leadership and project management
• Project management and stakeholders
• Project delivery team(s) (internal and external/vendor)
• Project team and other business units (especially for subject matter expertise or collaboration)
• Leadership and the wider business (especially for reiterating the purpose of the project to get buy-in).

The mode of communication ought to be varied and appropriate based on the nature of the matter. The more significant decisions and discussions warrant an in-person discussion, whereas a day-to-day chat around a code challenge might live on business messaging tools like Slack. Of course, video chat, phone calls and emails all come into the equation as well. One of the biggest mistakes with communications, apart from simply not having them, is picking an informal channel for an important discussion. A conflict is best resolved on an in-person level, whereas an email chain can lose all nuance and leave all parties more combative than before.

Proactively manage risks and issues

A risk register is a key living artefact you absolutely don’t want to skimp on detail with. A bit like insurance, a risk register truly shows its value when a scenario plays out that it’s designed to help mitigate. Project risk management will usually start with an assessment of known risks and potential scenarios at the start of the project. But it’s equally important to maintain risks on this register as the project evolves, the business changes around it and new market forces come into play. If a risk turns into a real event that needs careful management, the register will at the very least give a logical starting point for the response.

Along with risks that are captured formally, issues will crop up on a day-to-day basis that need solutions. Small, seemingly trivial issues left unattended can turn into real timeline, budget and resource threats. Part of the project manager’s role is to facilitate quick resolutions to these, whether that’s having a simple conversation or reorganising the team’s efforts for that day to help fix an issue.

Adapting to change

Even the most robust project plan and closely protected scope can be subject to events that require a change of direction. For some project methodologies, change and refinement is built into the framework itself. In other cases, the project’s delivery and outcomes may need to change due to market conditions, leadership changes or a strategic redirection.

Staying responsive to these changes without losing a sense of structure can be a fine balance for a project team to strike. The project manager will be tasked with translating changes to the delivery team in a way that keeps everyone clear and motivated on the goals of the project. Adapting can mean new milestones, different features and even new stakeholders.

Measuring project progress and reporting

Reporting on progress isn’t just a checkbox exercise for a project, it helps decisions get made and, importantly, build a case for more support, budget or time. There are a number of levels where reporting is important:

• Project delivery team timesheeting
• Progress reporting on tasks
• Reporting on milestones and sprint outputs
• Team retrospectives
• Financial reporting
• Executive or leadership reporting – includes issues and accomplishments
• Responsive reporting when requested by a steering committee, sponsor, stakeholder or senior leadership team.

When there’s a gap in reporting and commentary around the project, it can be harder to identify trends or problems. It can also make it much more difficult for stakeholders to understand the status of the project. In the case of a project, no news is definitely not good news as far as people across the business are concerned!

Reflection and retrospectives

Whether a stage, phase or sprint was a resounding success or a spectacular failure, looking back and reflecting is so valuable for learning across the team. The retrospective process provides an opportunity to discuss the work completed, challenges faced, opportunities for improvement and resolving problems before the next stage gets underway.

A retrospective will typically involve the delivery team, but sometimes other key stakeholders may participate in a session to share and learn. The more in-person group discussions like this, the better things usually go.

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