TOP Ideas

Our consulting company, Capability Management International, is 15 years old this year. So we start the year with 15 of our most critical insights.

“Success comes from being excellent at ‘what’ not ‘how’.”

If you make a film, “how” you make it is less important to its success than “what” you make. If you make a bad film with a poor characterization and plot, however well you make it will not improve the core film. If you improve the film quality, the lighting, the cameras (the ‘how’) but not the plot or characters, then you’ll still have a lousy film (even if exquisitely made!)

Most of the attention on projects for the past 20-30 years has been focused on the “how” — principally project management. Methodologies, books, support systems, training and qualifications on project management abound, but the success rate on projects has not increased. Indeed, they’ve not improved since the AD Little study of 1991.

So, we must be focusing on the wrong dimension.

The “what” has not only been neglected but has been significantly downplayed in recent years. Clearly and comprehensively defining your business requirements has been decried and denounced as unnecessary. And the results don’t improve. Is it only me that sees a connection here?

The primary determinant of success is that you deliver what your business requires — the ‘what’. However well you deliver your project, if you don’t deliver what is required, you’ve failed. Simple.

Rather than sending yet more people to be trained as project managers we need to send people to be trained in project and results delivery — identifying, defining, designing and delivering the “what”.

Yet, when we did our worldwide study on project delivery, the impact — good or bad — of project management on the results was negligible. What made the difference were how well the requirements and required changes were specified. Get that wrong and over 50% of your value was lost.

Funny that. That’s the same statistic of value loss that most organizations experience with their projects. Coincidence or driver?

What do you think? Post your comments below.

The highly effective Business Simplification Program that allows untrained staff to accurately and completely specify their requirements will shortly be available from valuedeliverymanagement.com