There’s a post over on Chris Brogan’s blog about “How Frameworks Improve Your Business Thinking.” Food for thought, for sure, and the money quote (as my buddy Drew would say) takes the form of a couple of important questions Chris asks: “What are the parameters of what you’re doing? How do you align them with the business goals of the company?”
I’ve been involved in some really exciting projects over the years and the thing that made the raging successes just that (besides great people!) was time spent defining business requirements – exactly what the business needed the project to deliver. On the other hand, the projects I’ve been called on to rescue have also shared a common thread; a lack of clearly defined business drivers and a very weak project framework.
Developing a project framework shouldn’t take a lot of time or generate pain and overhead, if the team members involved have a good understanding of the business and the desired outcomes of the proposed initiative. Further, a solid project framework provides a way for teams to work efficiently and effectively, both individually and collectively.
Where do you start when developing a project framework for your initiatives? There’s no cookie-cutter approach, since most initiatives are handled as innovations. However, I’ve come up with a basic formula that’s worked for me:
- Needs analysis. You really need to take some time and figure out exactly what the business (and the people it serves) really want to carry out through the initiative. As Chris says in his post, “What are the parameters of what you’re doing? How do you align them with the business goals of the company?” Involve stakeholders and anyone else you think can help you develop a road map for success on a particular project. And don’t forget to ask “Why?” quite a bit when defining these parameters.
- Capabilities assessment. Now that you know what the initiative is trying to do and “Why?”, you need to figure out what the organization (and the people it serves) is actually organizationally, socially and technically (if applicable) capable of. It’s an informal gap analysis, focused on organizational capabilities.
- Balance needs against capabilities. It’s really an art to ride the crest of change and even more of an art to teach others to ride the crest with you. But this is where your experience and business sense come into play (and face it, this is why you get the big bucks, dammit.) Helping the organization figure out what they can do internally and what they’ll need to do to get external help to fill any gaps is almost as important as the needs analysis itself.
As Chris says, “…this seems simple, and yet, it’s part of what many of us forget to do.” By no means is the approach above the only way to develop a meaningful, useful framework for your own initiatives, but it’s definitely a good start. Modify the formula as you see fit so it works for your initiative.
Let me know how it goes. I’d love to hear about your approach to building a useful project framework.