4 Tips to deliver the projects promised to investors and stakeholders
Everything changes the moment you secure funding for the development of your product and business. This is the pivotal moment to redefine the business model for effective growth. Selecting the right practice, processes, systems and people will drive success. Here are my tips on how to handle the changing project management environment.
After months of convincing investors that your business and products will be successful, they have agreed to fund the next phase of your development. Cash is on its way and you are set to grow the business into a sustainable success.
As the business owner or leader your thinking is shifting from strategies, legal clauses and risk assessments to the tactical mindset of defining the detailed activities and mobilising the teams. The morning after the celebration everyone wants to hear what is next. Initially ‘carry on’ is the right message but everyone knows the business needs to transform and change is inevitable.
‘The Five stages of small business growth’ published in 1983 by Harvard Business Review, shows the different stages of growth with an emphasis on the role of the owner or leader.
Figure 1. The Five Stages of Small Business Growth, by Neil C. Churchill and Virginia L. Lewis, May 1983. Illustration reproduced for clarity.
The phases and their characteristics are informative and can be related to business units or departments who are developing new products, technology and have gained funding from the wider organisation.
Phase 2 ‘Survival’ finishes when the objective of ‘growing through direction’ have been achieved in the form of outside funding or being valued to allow for a successful sell-out.
In the third phase ‘success’, the leader needs to shift his or her focus from directing to delegating which, according to the article, can result in a crisis of control. Delegation may not be happening at the right pace or after delegating the leader is too uncomfortable and reverts to take control of all aspects of the business.
The crisis of control is, in my opinion, a crisis of communication.
The owner or leader needs to change from an entrepreneur involved in every aspect of the business to an executive officer who works through managers, one step further removed from the action. The new goal is to direct through others, motivate and make strategic decisions, which will determine the success of the business and its future products. The investment is unlikely to be sufficient to continue all the active projects, prioritising is needed.
At the same time project leaders need to provide the data to evaluate each project against the same standards, the same features need to be considered, risks, deliverables, the likelihood of success, ROI etc. This may not be available. In the ‘survival mode’ everyone is working hard but not necessarily to the same systems and standards.
Here are my 4 tips to build a structure for projects that allows for effective delegation, facilitates people to do their job and provides the information needed to make the right decisions.
1. Hire functional managers including a project manager. In the survival phase of a business everyone is hands-on in proving the technology, preparing the launch of the product, and selling! Functional areas can now be defined to optimise the activity and chase the targets. Your current team has been brilliant but may not have the vision or the experience to put processes in place to prepare for the future. You need visionaries who support the direction of the company and who have solid experience. They will be reliable to take on part of the control of functional areas.
Hiring a project manager will give the technical experts the headspace to focus on the technical challenges instead of stretching into the PM role.
2. Establish a basic project management model. Up until now the project management process will have been intuitive and different for each project. Establishing a model does not mean spending a lot of time discussing names of the phases or setting up reams of templates. Not every organisation needs a Project Management Office nor is it essential to study Prince2 or Agile to select a system suitable for your business.
The Software Engineering Institute at Carnegie-Mellon University developed a process maturity framework for software development processes in 1986. Their 5 maturity levels are often cited and reproduced in the literature. The Project Management Institute [PMI] has used these categories to further expand the definition and categories.
1) Initial - ad hoc, few defined processes
2) Repeatable - disciplined process, basic project management
3) Defined - standard, consistent management and engineering processes are used throughout the organization. The first version of a Project Management Office is launched
4) Managed - software process and product quality are quantitatively measured and controlled
5) Optimizing - continuous process improvement
These definitions ring true with the stages of project management processes I have seen in clients’ companies. I also see a relation between the business growth phases and the maturity of PM processes although the 5 stages do not overlap. PM processes tend to be out of sync with the business growth phases because the PM practice is the result of business growth, not the driver.
Figure 2. 5 stages of PM maturity applied to the 5 stages of small business growth, as interpreted by Hilde Pollet
Establishing a project management process in the success phase can be as simple as allowing the lead PM to bring in his or her expertise and way of working. This is a great way to trial out methods and routines, while introducing new tools to team members who want to develop their PM skills.
3. Project management essentials. The following 3 documents are a must to communicate the details of projects and allow for effective tracking against the business strategy. The process of writing and agreeing the content will reveal any misunderstandings. Efforts spent on the content will be a valuable investment as it can avoid wasting effort on developing a product not in line with the business strategy.
a. Business case: After receiving funding the business case for every project must be reviewed. Compromises may have been made to obtain the funding commitment. These need to be documented and communicated to maintain a common understanding of the deliverables and benefits.
b. Project roadmaps showing key milestones, decision points and key deliverables. This precedes any further detail planning for the next phase or the next increment. Roadmaps that are manageable and easy to understand fit on a page. Do not underestimate the effort it takes to reduce all complexity to one page. Again, this effort will pay off in the long run as the project manager or team who draft this roadmap will know it by heart and understand the intricacies of the project.
c. Charter: Scope, time commitment and quality criteria are the minimum. Workshops are great to clarify everyone’s understanding of the project.
4. Establish communication routines; My preferred way to establish a communication model is to play out a scenario of crisis and routine communication during a facilitated workshop. Establishing what everyone needs to be able to perform their role will very quickly reveal the model that can work for your company. An efficient communications routine groups different levels, sets a content format and establishes basic rules and exceptions.
My final recommendation is to make the most of the available expertise and use workshops to efficiently deliver these basics before continuing the technical challenge. Facilitated workshops are a great way to bring people together, let everyone’s voice be heard and create buy-in to the solutions.
Get in touch to kick-start the next phase of your PM practice today!
References
The Five Stages of Small Business Growth, by Neil C. Churchill and Virginia L. Lewis, May 1983, https://hbr.org/1983/05/the-five-stages-of-small-business-growth
Project maturity model: a detailed assessment instrument. Seesing, P. R. (2003). Paper presented at PMI® Global Congress 2003—North America, Baltimore, MD. Newtown Square, PA: Project Management Institute. https://www.pmi.org/learning/library/detailed-assessment-instrument-theoretical-context-7683