Explorers! Bright eyed, bushy tailed, steel in their hearts, flint in their eyes, determination and courage in their hearts as they set out into the unknown, intent on reaching their destination, achieving their goals and setting hearts back home alight with respect and admiration.
People like Scott and Shackleton, Antarctic explorers, determined adventurers and utter failures. We know their stories so well: Scott writing to people he would never see again, accepting death as the consequence for failure, beaten to his goal, a study in getting it completely and so nobly wrong; Shackleton, failing even earlier in his venture, being shipwrecked, turning back, sailing the wild Southern Ocean in an open boat, toiling up and tobogganing down rugged peaks to reach a remote outpost and setting out immediately to rescue his crew, his lesson one in caring for his team, keeping them together, bringing them home.
Who knows the details of the story of Roald Amundsen, first to reach the South Pole? We know his name because he beat Scott, but in our common knowledge we know little else (Wikipedia has a great article on his preparation for and successful journey to and from the North Pole). Achieving his goal did not make his name common knowledge. The challenges, failures and lessons to be learned ensured Scott’s and Shackleton’s place in our lexicon of stories.
Venturing into unknown territory can never be only about the destination. “I will succeed because I have a noble cause” has killed many, just as it killed Scott’s party. It has to be about the journey, it has to be about learning.
Roald succeeded because he made good decisions. He had experience of trekking in extreme cold, and he chose dogs as his means for transport. His team started out early in the season (they could, because they had dogs), but turned back when they encountered extreme cold, caching their supplies.
Scott wasn’t so good at making decisions. He took ponies instead of dogs, which meant starting later, moving slower and carrying pony food (Amundsen fed the dogs to the dogs). He didn’t learn as he went; he ignored the growing evidence that they weren’t going to make it and, because of his decisions, he died.
Shackleton was different. He abandoned his goal completely when the team’s ship became trapped in ice, far from their destination and moving further away and it became clear that survival was the new goal. He worked with everything he had available, made tough and good decisions, changed them in the light of experience and eventually brought his entire party, battered and wiser, safely back to civilisation.
Running projects should be just like going exploring. Set it up well (be skilled and knowledgeable in the areas required to succeed), focus on learning as we go (the lie of the land, the challenges and failures along the way informing decisions on the route to success) and we will always succeed. Occasionally we won’t reach the destination we intended to reach, but the lessons learned will more than make up for that and perhaps we’ll find the unexpected destination is far more valuable.
A quote from Marcel Proust: “The real voyage of discovery is not about seeking new landscapes. It’s about having new eyes.” It is about learning, and applying what we learn.
To bring it into the project context, just following the process, or creating and following a plan, is not a guarantee that a project is going to deliver a great result. Rather, we must plan enough to know our intentions and the path to get there; then we set out to learn the weaknesses in our plan as quickly, as often and as early as possible so that we can choose the better path to success.
Your process helps. Your process has good stuff in it. A process should be the accumulation of all learnings, and it should be the place that we start with when we plan. We apply its accumulated wisdom as we decide how this project is going to happen, because each project is unique and needs decisions on how it should be delivered, in context. We should keep the process up to date with the best way we know how to deliver projects. But we don’t, not at the level required to learn. An Albert Einstein quote: “In theory there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice there is.” Our process should be rooted in our detailed reality, but in practice it isn’t so we don’t have a great place to start every project.
Don’t panic!
Your last project plan is a firm foundation. It reflects what actually happened. Plans from other projects are also good – as long as they contain learnings (they aren’t just a regurgitation of the process, then lost and forgotten).
Put all your skill, knowledge and experience into crafting the new plan. Set out what you really expect to happen, being specific enough to learn, but not becoming a slave to the detail. Set out the things you don’t know and how you are going to learn about them.
Share your plan, asking for criticism from peers, coaches, mentors, leaders. It is the first place to start learning, magnificent in its low cost and opportunity for deep learning.
Do this quickly and easily, because it is not about getting the plan right: it is about starting with a great expectation.
This is worth repeating: The main focus of the plan is not to guarantee what will be delivered and when. The main point is to declare what you know, which allows you to be surprised by what you don’t know. Surprises mean learning, learning leads to good decisions and good decisions make a successful project.
Here is the mantra:
1. Expect something to happen (plan)
2. Write it down
3. Observe what actually happens (track against the plan)
4. Write it down
5. Learn from the difference (ask why)
6. Make a new decision and do it better next time (implement the learnings)
Learning and making new decisions closes the loop, creating continual learning and allows us to be Better Every Day.
“Value to the Customer” is the plumbline, the yardstick, when making decisions. Our goal is to maximise the value that the project delivers to the customer while optimising the cost. Create the plan based on the value that the project will add, then add detail based on the value that each participant in the project will add (or team, if a group of people is working on similar tasks).
Use outcomes (“I know I am done when…”) to manage the risk of over-production or over-processing. There needs to be a counterbalance to the relentless pursuit of value. Defining outcomes, at a project and participant level, provides that counter-balance.
Your plan is not complete without a set of sentences starting with “I know I am done when…” or “We know the project is done when…”.
Go for it, plan, learn, decide and deliver!
Charlie Wilkins - a smattering of writings 