truly Knowing what the project is supposed to achieve… It might seem a strange one to start with, but it catches a lot of people out.

Sometimes the person requiring a project themselves doesn’t really know or hasn’t quite got their thoughts clear.

Recently, whilst working with a large mobile phone company, I was asked to run a project to deal with Video Conferencing.  When asked what they wanted to achieve, I was instructed to tell them what could be achieved.  Sound familiar.

Thankfully, I didn’t continue with the project and ultimately, some very expensive and underused video conferencing equipment was installed in several offices.

This project was a waste.  Not because video conferencing isn’t great, it is, but it would have been much greater if it was used to its potential – and given some criteria – for example, we need to reduce travel by x or we want to improve collaboration between teams for these reasons.

It didn’t happen, and the companies costs remained out of control and they didn’t survive for long after this.  Installment 2 – Not truly knowing what the project is supposed to achieve…