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Supporting organizations Bridge Vision to Achievements | Can help your organizations deliver products to market faster while lowering costs and increasing competence!

Are you accepting project management (or project) failure? Recently, I shared this phrase handwritten via a post here on LinkedIn: https://lnkd.in/gBbHGbVj. That post generated many comments and views. One takeaway from those comments was about the word “predetermined.” The challenge is, can we predetermine success? Well, It depends on how you read or understand “predetermined.” Some view it as a guarantee. In that case, we cannot predetermine success since no one can guarantee it. However, our intent of this word is to emphasize the need for executives and project teams to consciously and consistently think of success instead of wishing or hoping for success. When we wish or hope for success, we might accept failure or less-than-optimal performance and settle for completion as success. At Uruk Project Management, we want to change the paradigm from accepting failure to achieving success, which starts with our intentional determination. Accordingly, predetermined consists of three things: 1) Establishing a solid business case for the change initiative (project or program). 2) A sound business case is insufficient. We must conduct a proper feasibility study. A feasibility study helps an organization determine if it can successfully deliver the change initiative and realize the anticipated benefits. If in doubt, the project should be stopped. Side note: in the Uruk Platform, we have a stage gate after step 1 (business case) and another stage gate after step 2 (feasibility study). The reason for these steps and the stage gates is to ensure proper governance. 3) We decided to move forward; what is next? Could we define the success criteria? Without well-defined and quantitative (where possible) criteria, success is subjective to opinion-based assessment. Accordingly, we recommend using the Uruk Way Four Dimensions of Project Success (https://lnkd.in/gWSWM9_F) and establishing the criteria for all four dimensions early on in the project. Here is a relevant video: https://lnkd.in/gWSWM9_F.

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Mounir Ajam

Supporting organizations Bridge Vision to Achievements | Can help your organizations deliver products to market faster while lowering costs and increasing competence!

3mo
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Mounir Ajam

Supporting organizations Bridge Vision to Achievements | Can help your organizations deliver products to market faster while lowering costs and increasing competence!

3mo
Like
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Mounir Ajam

Supporting organizations Bridge Vision to Achievements | Can help your organizations deliver products to market faster while lowering costs and increasing competence!

3mo
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Bill Duncan

Project management consultant and trainer. Primary author of the original (1996) PMBoK Guide. Curmudgeon.

3mo

"Predefined" or "agreed" would be much better. Why stick with a word that so many will misunderstand?

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