Grand plans and lofty projects are often hatched as result of stakeholder conversations. Most of them look and feel extremely important. Some are.
Far too often they are codified (in a three-ring binder) and put on a shelf, usually somewhere in the Boss’s office or on a buried page of the website.
Then……………………..they die.
Why? Some reasons that plans/projects die:
- No one is assigned to lead and be the champion of the project.
- The project “champion” has little or no authority act upon.
- Resistors (there are always resistors) are given too much moxie.
- Insufficient, or no, resources are allocated to the project.
- Forecasting the barriers and challenges never happens.
- The plans (which usually mean significant change of some kind) never get consistently and clearly communicated.
- The plan/project is never, or rarely, monitored after the initial crafting.
There is much wisdom on the old metaphor of “sand castles”….
Execution is a craft (the combo of science + art). A learnable skill, if we wish to learn it. And MUCH harder than the crafting of the plan.
*If you’d like to read more of nc’s blatherings, go to nc’s Recursive Learning.
