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One Nugget Report from The Project Management Advisor™
Issue 2009-31 - It Takes Two to Tango Slide Deck
Thanks to those of you who attended our live webinar It Takes Two To Tango: Great Sponsors + Great PM's = Great Project Success. We had a terrific turnout and received some great feedback from the webinar. As customary with my presentations, I wanted to make the slide deck available to my subscribers. I hope you're able to pull a couple of nuggets from the webinar to help you be more effective as project managers.
Following is a preview of one of the critical truths we discussed.
Download the slides here. Read about all ten truths here.
Great sponsors clearly articulate a root-cause problem to be solved.
Great PM’s ensure the team knows (and remembers) what problem is being solved.
The starting point for any project is the problem statement. Either something is broken, there is an opportunity to make something better, or there this some risk which is to be mitigated. Regardless of the source of the problem, both the sponsor and the PM have an important responsibility which needs to be fulfilled. The sponsor is responsible for ensuring that the problem statement is clearly articulated, is easy to understand, and is as quantitative as possible. The best problem statements simply roll off the tongue and can be communicated and understood within just a few seconds. The sponsor is responsible for ensuring the problem statement is easy-peasy to communicate.
Download the slides here. Read about all ten truths here.
The project manager, at the same time, is responsible for keeping the problem statement at the forefront of the team and is the conscience of the project as to what problem is being solved. Without the project manager anchoring the team on the problem statement, the project is more likely to run adrift in the ocean, be subject to scope creep, and eventually die because its original objective has been diluted or lost altogether. To do this, the project manager absolutely needs to clearly understand the problem statement, know the implications of the problem statement on the project, and be able to clearly identify when a project is running adrift of solving the problem.
So here is my advice to both the sponsor and the PM:
- To the sponsor - Be manic about defining a clear problem statement that is easily understood by everyone on the project, not just you.
- To the PM - Ensure the problem statement is clear, that you can easily communicate it to the team, that the team understands the problem to be solved, and that you can use the problem statement to mitigate scope creep. If you don't get it, keep asking questions until you do.
Download the slides
here.
Read about all ten truths
here.
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