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How To Know If Your Project Is Complete

April 13, 2010 | Author: PM Hut | Filed under: Project Management Guides

How To Know If Your Project Is Complete
By Jan Richards

Complete. Finished. Done. It sounds so clear, so final, right? Often the end of a project - and knowing if you have really found and crossed the finish line - is far from clear.

These are some of the reasons there may be disagreement about whether a project is complete:

  1. Perfectionism and different priorities
  2. Fear about how the product of the team’s work will be received
  3. The team really likes working together
  4. Problems have arisen and no one is sure how to put them to bed…so the project never ends

There are other reasons, of course, but those are some of the main ones for a fuzzy finish line, or one that seems almost impossible to get across.

Let’s look at each of these issues a little more so you can prevent them with your next project.

  1. Perfectionism and different priorities

    You’re the expert who’s charged with doing or leading the work. It is your reputation and pride that is at stake. And as the expert who knows what quality work is in your realm, it is your job to influence the decision-makers’ understanding about what a completed product is.

    Still, at the end of the day, the customer decides where the finish line is. It’s their money, and their project. They have to live with the results, which have to meet their requirements for success.

    They may not want finishes or flourishes or details that you, the expert, would love to include in order to meet your industry’s most rigorous standards for award-winning excellence.

    Or, as people used to comment about the marketing expenses at a company where I once worked, “We’re not creating coffee table art. We’re telling customers about the product, and hoping that they’re inspired enough to want to buy it. That’s it. We’re not going for Academy Awards or the trying to get our work in the Museum of Modern Art.”

    Keep a clear focus on your customers’ goals and objectives for this work.

  2. Fear about how the product will be received

    This fear is likely to occur if you don’t know a lot about your customers or their needs for your new product or service.

    And even if you do, this fear can still occur. It’s like an artist’s performance anxiety.

    To prevent it as much as possible, learn all you can about:

    • Your customers
    • Their needs for this product or service
    • How they’re meeting those needs now (what’s your competition, as things currently stand?)
    • How satisfied they are with their present solutions (is there really an opportunity for something new, or is the market saturated?)

    Then test the product or service with a sample of customers as you create it.

    By the time you release the finished product, customers’ ideas will have been built in.

    Market acceptance will be far more likely than if you did all the work in the absence of any customer involvement.

    Once you release the new product or service to the full market, pay close attention to the results. You are likely to learn a lot about your process of turning a great idea into great results, which will make it more likely your next new product or service will be even more successful.

  3. The team doesn’t want to stop working together.

    This is a good problem to have.

    So often, a team can’t wait to disband. Consider a team that doesn’t want to go their separate ways a bonus of some type, and an accolade for your leadership, if you’re at the helm.

    And then look for ways to work together again, if at all possible.

  4. Problems have arisen and no one is sure what they are, or how to put them to bed…so the project never ends.

    For this, you may need to reset expectations about when the project will be complete. This may mean renegotiating the schedule, deliverables and milestones with your client and team.

    And then make the time to dive into the problems as much as possible to put them to rest. Or, as may be the case, to find out they’re not really problems at all, or at least not as big as you feared.

    You may, in fact, be dealing with perfectionism or fear about how the product will be received and the answer to those is more, not less, customer involvement all through your development process.

Jan Richards helps businesses turn their business goals into great results. She invites you to get a copy of the free report, “Leading Teams Successfully Through Uncertain Times” available at http://www.jgrichardsresults.com from Jan Richards, J.G. Richards Consulting - Turning Business Goals Into Great Results.

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