• Define the outcomes of a project in units of measure meaningful to the customer

The customer bought a product or service. Actually the customer bought a capability. No if fact the customer should have bought an “effect,” a change in the current way of doing business, executing the mission, or some other means of changing from the “now” to the “future.”

What does this “effect” look like. What capabilities must be possessed to create this effect. That's what done looks like.

• Define the work needed to produce these outcomes through “deliverables” not “effort”

Plan the work that moves the project forward. This work must produce a product, a service, or some processes that supports the production of a product or service. Anything else is waste.

• Define progress in units of physical percent complete, measured in units of tangible evidence produced on periodic boundaries

Weeks are good, days are really good, never more than a month should pass before tangible physical evidence is examined.

If you're not measuring physical percent complete, your project is Level of Effort – Train Watching. If you're not measuring outcomes and the quality of those outcomes – not output, outcomes – then you're a level of effort project.

• Have a plan

A Plan is a strategy for success. Have this plan before you start the project. Without a plan, you will
loose sight of what done looks at the first sign of difficulty.

This is a core concept of Covey – Begin with the end in mind. If you don't know what “done” looks like, you'll never be able to recognize it when it arrives.

• Know what can prevent your success and handle it

If you don't have a risk management plan, your risks will become issues and then it'll be too late to do anything about them

It Is This Simple

• If you don't know what done looks like, you'll never get there. If you don't know where you are going, you might wind up someplace else — Yogi Berra
• If you don't know how much work there is to do, you can't know when you will be done. Velocity (or any measures of progress) is worthless is you don't know the distance to be traveled
• Measure only in units meaningful to the customer. The customer bought a solution, capability, or an effect, not you effort to produce those
• No Plan, no way to measure progress
• Risk Management is How Adults Manage Projects — Tim Lister
  

The original post is created by: Herding Cats