How quickly are you able to change course once you get off the ground?
It takes a huge amount of time and energy to get a team off the ground with a project or strategy implementation. Its definitely a great undertaking to get to the point of implementation. Knowing how much time this takes, do you consider any necessary course corrections along the way?
Here's the issue: since it takes a huge amount of time to get a project off the ground, by the time you get past the point of implementation, enough time has gone by that the parameters you set up at the beginning to get to your destination have changed. The analogy of flight demonstrates this. On a planned flight path, pilots make several adjustments along the way to correct the flight path given the changing conditions in the air. Changing conditions can be anything from a small change in wind speed to a major storm that requires the pilot to fly at a higher altitude to avoid the turbulence.
Embedding frequent reassessments into your project implementation to account for change in conditions can be one of the most important things you do to ensure you get to your intended goal. After all, the time spent on getting a project off the ground would be time poorly spent if course changes were not anticipated and implemented at key stages of operation.
How do you allow for reassessment and course adjustment?
Here are some tips:
- Before implementing, assess if your original plan is still relevant. What are the instruments you are using to assess relevancy? These may be market analysis, trends, significant changes in the environment and continual relevancy to market needs.
- After implementation, plan for frequent assessments to see how the project is going. This is like taking a temperature to gauge whether conditions have significantly changed. This can be simply polling your front line people for an evaluation to doing a significant assessment of customers or clients to polling practices to gauge effectiveness.
- Maintain enough of a fluid atmosphere that will allow for the need of an immediate course change should the situation warrant it. Getting your team used to dealing with change can go a long way to being able to make quick course corrections. Many projects have gone down in flames because the team was averse to changing quickly.
- Foster consistent documentation and constant discussion. A project should never go without review or discussion for more than 6 months - preferably 3 months. Document everything so that there is a way of recalling past issues and discussions. Its not surprising that great ideas and great processes are forgotten quickly. Documentation gives you a reference point.
Creating an assessment culture in your work environment will go a long way to ensuring that you stay on course to where you are headed. These tips can add to a successful project run and a successful project change.
