Monday 29 March 2010

“On Time, On Budget, Who Cares?” What is important in making marketing technology ideas happen. Part One


In his excellent book ‘Rules of Thumb’, Alan Weber quotes (and I’m paraphrasing here from the original Tom Peters quote)


“On time, on budget, who cares?”


It's an inflammatory line that hides a pragmatic message; In many cases on time and on budget has little to do with overall success, and success is why you start a project in the first place (to be successful in your goals). Why then do so many projects use this as their main manta in the way they are run?


Think of the big marketing and tech successes of recent years - the iPhone, Google’s many services, Facebook – and we find lessons on the way these companies have deployed ideas what has been their key focus (a prize for guessing whether the iPhone was indeed on time or on budget).


This led me to think about the projects I've been involved with, from big brands to small, quick projects to long, creative led design projects to deeply technical projects – and it rang true.


So, inspired by Weber’s book I came up with my own Rules of Thumb for what really matters to making projects successful. All the advice below assumes your doing all the basics like picking a good project management style like Scrum, you have a good team and some modem design thinking like UCD, EED etc.


I first made a list of all the major projects I'd been involved with the projects (22 major projects in total) and wrote down a what made them successful or what made them fail. Fortunately all of them were delivered on broadly on time or on budget, so the variance was on how successful they were in the end. Here are the top 5 (well 7 as there we some joint most common features), and though this was subjective exercise, there were a few surprises


#1 Understanding the brief, and having a clear vision. This sounds obvious and easy, but doing this well was the most common factor in successful projects I’ve been involved in, and doing this badly is prominent in project failure. Typicall, every team will have read the brief, and have a vision; but it’s the degree to which everyone truly understands the brief, have translated it into what it means for their role and re-visited the brief and vision as the project evolves that I’ve found to be a main determinant on how a project does


#2 Moving rapidly from concept to reality (and back). Tim Brown’s ‘Change by Design’ makes this point well (page 87 if you have the book). Teams who spend to long in concept before making there ideas physical lose the reality of what the project is trying to achieve and procrastinate. Jump to reality too quickly and you missing chances to step back as see the broad picture and innovate. Great projects get this balance right, and at key times can work seamlessly from concept to reality (and back).


Joint #3 Sticking close to the end user – staying close to the users from the start and throughout the project is a common feature of Agile projects, and I’ve found it to be a key factor of success. Getting face to face time with the people who your are trying to delight and the problems and opportunities they face is invaluable.


Joint #3 Recognising that new ideas and projects will cause change – projects and ideas are generally about doing something new, and with that inevitably comes change. Teams that recognise this and embrace change (and also recognise that people really really don’t like change) do well and can manage and prepare for these very human aspects of doing things. Some of the most challenged projects I’ve worked on is where teams have demanded “we want to do something new and ground breaking with this idea”, but in the same breadth mentioned “but don’t want to change the way we do things”. This can extend in some cases to entire companies, and industries – in 2010 most Media companies are great examples not recognising how difficult change can be.


Joint #4 A passionate product owner – if you’re not familiar with Scrum terminology, a ‘product owner’ “represents the voice of the customer. They ensure that the team works with the “right things” from a business perspective”. They are also very handy at getting rid of obstacles and managing and communicating to stakeholders; all very useful in maintain good pace in developing ideas and projects. The more engaged the product owner, the better the project. If you can get this person engaged daily on your project then your chances of success are a whole lot better.


Joint #4 Immersion – this goes hand in hand with the being close to users. Teams who immerse themselves in the project, the problem, the customer, the solution do well. This can mean anything from store visits, moodboarding or posting pictures of your users on the wall. Teams who makes active steps to get immersed early do well.


#5 Funding – a very tricky topic to cover entirely but one that often kills a great project or idea when everyone least expects it. Most teams know the importance of funding at the start of a venture but it’s the good ones who take the time out to understand the interests and concerns of those holding the cash (and keep close to them throughout the project), have a good rationale for why the project should be funded and what it will return (which doesn’t always have to be a indepth business case) and tracking the financial benefits as the idea develops.


These are in my view the most common "advanced " elements in successful projects. Going through this I was surprised that a good plan, having fun, and good communication didn't rank higher against these elements. In part two of this post I’ll outline a few tips on what you can do to implement each of these areas.


As always, I’d love to hear any feedback you have from your experiences.