Are you suffering from project overload?
Nobody can do everything well. That is obvious. And organisations are no different. I often find client organisations have too many initiatives. Take a leading professional services firm. I was interim delivery director for their IT projects. They had 180 of them! No wonder the previous occupants of the role, some seven people in four years had failed.
So ask yourself. Are you really channelling talents, efforts and resources at the real problems and opportunities? Or are your efforts diverted to the urgent, rather than the important? It’s a bit like shooting the alligators, rather than draining the swamp. And using a shotgun for that purpose. It makes a lot of noise but doesn’t kill the alligators. It just annoys them. It would be better devoting more effort to draining the swamp.
So what can you do? Well back to the professional services firm. We introduced a rigorous approval system for new initiatives and ensured completed projects were properly handed over. We sharpened progress tracking, improved risk management and grouped similar projects together. After four months, the number of live projects had been halved and cost and time overruns reduced by one third.
Picture by Paraflyer
Mike
A good blog posting, easy to read, short and to the point.
Initiative overload is very common, especially in the public sector. An additional problem being that initiatives take on a life of their own and are very rarely stopped/cancelled/sunsetted.
I have also started a blog, which I have found useful for marketing, but have not managed to keep all the postings short and sweet.
Regards
Jeff Herman
October 21, 2009 at 9:00 am
Thanks Jeff. I replied originally by email.
But missed the significance of your other point about projects not being stopped or cancelled or sunsetted.
Some initiatives continue long after the original needs have changed.
Many projects decay – they are never quite finished. And benefits are not realised. And lessons are not learnt.
Thanks again Jeff
Mike Barnato
January 14, 2010 at 4:28 pm
[...] previous post discussed project overload and what to do about it. If you don’t prioritise, you usually fail to achieve your goals. It’s [...]
Portfolio muddle? Will your projects deliver your goals? « Mike Barnato
November 27, 2009 at 12:12 pm
[...] projects as a vehicle for delivering change. Apply the ingredients of project success. Avoid project overload. Make sure your projects don’t get into a [...]
Strategy and delivery: how to be better at both « Mike Barnato
December 4, 2009 at 5:17 pm
[...] what you will do and what you won’t do. If you try to do everything, you lose focus and get initiative overload. It’s a big issue with many of my clients. And the letters RSPCA are a reminder of the [...]
The RSPCA, Dennis and Speedy and purpose « Mike Barnato
April 27, 2010 at 1:48 pm
[...] Channel talents, efforts and resources at what matters. [...]
Fire fighting: Symptoms & Solutions « Mike Barnato
December 8, 2010 at 11:24 am