The Common Path to Uncommon Success

The 15(+3) Standard Steps to Project Success

”Uncommon success is achievable, and the path is a common one.” —John Lee Dumas, Entrepreneur on Fire

We’ve seen that projects occur in four distinct sequential phases (Initiation, Planning, Execution, and Closeout). Add to that a healthy dollop of leadership, and you have the basic framework for successfully shepherding a project from start to finish. But that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Each of the phases can be further subdivided into a series of individual steps, and each of those into sub-steps, and so on. 

To understand how this works, it’s helpful to consider the primary fifteen project steps. Like the phases, these fifteen steps are universal to all projects. Of course, the complexity, detail, and level of rigor applied to each of these steps will vary between projects, but for the vast majority of projects, these are the fifteen required elements. To ignore even one of them is to put your project at a serious risk of failure. Said more plainly, these fifteen steps are the fundamental building blocks experienced PMs use to ensure all the requirements of a project are systematically identified, logically addressed, and successfully achieved.

The Initiation Phase Steps:

The Initiation Phase of a project is when we define what the project is about. We cannot create any meaningful plans unless we establish what the primary goals of the project are, and how we intend to accomplish those objectives. The Initiation phase comprises two primary steps:

1. Identify & Document the Key Project Stakeholders. Every project has one or more people who want or need the deliverable that the project should create. These can be customers, users, sponsors, and/or funding entities. These “stakeholders” hold the underlying purpose, goal, or aim of the project. Your first job as project manager is to identify these people and begin a conversation with them.

2. Define & Document the Project Objectives & Expectations. The identification of the key project stakeholders allows us to talk to them. More specifically, it allows us to interview them and capture their high-level wants, needs, and desires from the project. Typically, we capture, triage, and document these collective goals and objectives into a Project Mission Statement.

The Planning Phase Steps:

The Planning Phase of a project is when we take the high-level, top-down information we gathered from our primary stakeholders in the Initiation Phase and turn it into detailed, bottom-up plans we can then execute in the next phase. There are six key elements to this phase:

3. Define & Document the Project Deliverables & Acceptance Criteria. If we have a solid Mission Statement, we can tease out of it the actual deliverables the project should produce to accomplish that mission. We call these deliverables the “scope” of the project, and they can be products, services, and/or results. We document these deliverables in a work breakdown structure (WBS), which is really nothing more than a hierarchical list of specific things the project will either produce or provide. Along with every deliverable in the WBS is also some type of acceptance criteria. We call these “quality” requirements, and they encompass such things as the form, fit, function, and performance of each element of scope.

4. Define the Scope Acquisitions & Delivery Plans. Step 3, above, tells us what we’re supposed to create or provide. This step 4 explains how we’re going to create or provide each element of scope. Will we make the thing in-house? Contract it out? Buy it off the shelf? Or something else altogether.

5. Establish the Project Schedule & Tracking Milestones. Following the determination of how we’ll create each element of scope, we must then lay out and document the specific steps required to achieve that result. We capture these activities, along with their logical sequencing, in a schedule. And along with the schedule, we develop discrete points where we’ll be able to measure and report progress; we call these tracking milestones.

6. Establish the Project Budget & Funding Profile. If we know what we’re building, how will build it, and have a schedule for all the activities (and durations) to accomplish that plan, we can then estimate how much all of this will cost. The result is the project budget.

7. Establish and Execute Risk Management. The next step in the planning process is to determine what things can go wrong with our plan, and put in place responses that minimize the likelihood and/or impact of these risks, or threat.

8. Establish Project Contingencies. The last step of the Planning phase is to establish reserves of money, time, and/or expendable scope that can address any risks that are realized during execution.

The Execution Phase Steps:

The Execution Phase of a project is when we implement the plans developed during the Planning Phase. This is the day-to-day management of all the project work, including all the supporting work (e.g., systems engineering, safety engineering, etc.) and active risk management activities. The purpose of this step is simple: to proactively keep the project on course to deliver the deliverable on time, on budget, and within quality acceptance requirements. There are four primary aspects of this phase, all of which are repeated iteratively until the project work is finished and the deliverables of the project completed:

9. Direct & Oversee The Project Work. This step is the act of prioritizing, planning, and prepping the work at it unfolds per the schedule. This is important because a schedule comprises relatively high-level activities. We need to continually review and expand those 1-2 week-long activities into specific day-to-day tasks. Part of this is ensuring we and our team are focused on the truly important elements of work, and not just the so-called “urgent” tasks. We also must ensure all the plans, logistics, and resources are lined up to the support the upcoming work. And finally, we need a means of managing ours and our team members’ tasks.

10. Monitor & Measure the Project State. This step is about measuring progress against the plan. We do this both quantitatively (e.g., via techniques like earned value management) and qualitatively (e.g., via discussions with team members & stakeholders, and seeing the work ourselves firsthand). Along with this, we also monitor and assess the project risk situation, reviewing existing risks and identifying and analyzing any additional risks that may have arisen since the last time we checked. 

11. Control & Change The Plan As Required. This step is when we take the results of the previous Monitoring step and implement all required changes to keep the project on track for success. These changes can occur to either the baseline or the project execution plan. This step is also when we implement any risk response plans, plus address any realized risks (i.e., “issues”) as they arise.

12. Report & Document the Project State. Finally, a key aspect to successful project management is ensuring all key stakeholders are informed and appraised of the project statement, including progress to date, the current trajectory the project is on, risks and issues, and any changes that have been made or are being contemplated. We do this by keeping good internal records and documentation of the work, plus regularly reporting to our stakeholders.

The Closeout Phase Steps:

Next, we come to the closeout phase of a project. This is when we take all our hard work from the previous Execution phase and wrap it all up with a nice, neat bow, shutting down the project in a complete, systematic, and professional manner. This phase has three key steps:

13. Perform Technical Closeout of Project. This step is comprised primarily of preparing the scope of the project for handover to the customer or key stakeholders. This includes preparing all test results and other proof that the scope is fully completed and has met all of its acceptance criteria.

14. Perform Administrative Closeout of Project. In additional to delivering the deliverable, we have to close or transfer all open obligations, contracts, leases on equipment, legal commitments, lien releases, and so on. Additionally, all unused resources and unspent budget gets returned. While not the most glamorous of work, these elements of this step are vital to ensuring the project is properly shut down.

15. Perform Programmatic Closeout of Project. The last step of the Closeout Phase is when we release the project team and shut-down the project, including receiving formal acknowledgement from the key stakeholders that the work is all completed and acceptable. 

The Leadership “Phase”:

The 15 steps above comprise the “management” aspects of overseeing a project from start to finish. But there is another area of responsibility that comes with being the project manager: Leadership. In simple terms, leadership is the act of eliciting maximum productivity from your project team. To do this, there are three key things you must perform in parallel with previous steps throughout the entire project: 

• X. Guide the Project Team. The first primary aspect of project leadership is one of guidance and direction. As leaders, we must take ownership of the project and its purpose, worry about the project, energize it, and steer the project through and around all the obstacles that are put in its way. Some project managers liken this to “driving the project bus” or “steering the ship,” and these aren’t terrible metaphors. At its core, leadership is the act of guiding the project along its course, from the project start to its end. As we dive into this area in a later post, you’ll see that I use the acronym “P.O.W.E.R.” to represent the five key elements of this aspect of leadership.

• Y. Motivate the Project Team. The second key aspect of project leadership focuses on team motivation and inspiration. Boiled down to its basic elements, motivation is about encouraging and ensuring your team is working at maximum productivity, meaning they are inspired, committed, and working at maximum efficiency, effectiveness, and endurance during the project. It’s easy for a team to start strong, but then fall into routines and, frankly, the drudgery of a project, losing motivation and productivity. Your job as leader of the project is to do the things that bolster and improve morale and motivation whilst removing those things that eat away at it. As you’ll see, I use the acronym, “R.E.S.P.E.C.T.” to address the seven key elements of this motivation aspect of leadership.

• Z. Exemplify the Project Standard. Finally, our role as a project leader is to set the standard we want our team to observe, resonate with, and emulate. We can’t ask our team to work hard day after day unless we’re willing to do the same. Similarly, we can’t expect them to behave with integrity and high standards unless we ourselves set that example. Said more simply, leaders exemplify the behavior and conduct expected on the project. From professionalism, to resiliency, to ethics, our goal is to not just talk the talk, but walk the walk, too. The acronym we’ll walk through during this discussion is “P.R.I.D.E.”

The Bottom Line:

Every project is unique. The size, scale, complexity, levels of formality and rigor, the industry, the product… by definition, your project differs from mine. But the path to success of essentially every project will be the same. You must start with proactively defining, deciding, and documenting how the project will be executed. You must develop and agree upon (with your stakeholders) a project baseline and execution plan. Not only that, but you must direct, monitor, control, and document/report on your project proactively. You must systematically and logically shut the project down at the end, delivering (and getting acceptance of) the project deliverables. And you must provide effective leadership to your team along the way.

Most projects fail. Per annual surveys, something like 75% of all projects don’t meet their goals and objectives. The reason for those failures can usually be traced back to the failure of one or more of the basic 15+3 steps. Project failure is common, but it doesn’t have to be this way; the steps and process to success are common among all projects; only the level of rigor and formality of those steps differ between projects.

The bottom line is this: if we want our projects to succeed, we must think and act systematically. If you intend to organize, execute, and close a successful project, you need to fully embrace a logical and planned process. There are no shortcuts to success—but it’s not rocket science either. It’s just common sense—on the common path to uncommon project success.