Alignment Accelerates Project Delivery

Alignment reduces friction and accelerates projects.

To be successful, your project needs alignment between the individuals on your team and, more significantly, between the approach and the underlying complexity of the project. Misalignment wastes effort and slows progress.

Are you really aligned?

We often assume everyone on a project is heading in the same direction. On the surface it might look like we are aligned, but if we are not pulling in the same direction, effort is wasted, and pace is lost.

Paul, the CFO of a development corporation, faced this issue during a finance system implementation. The project seemed to progress, but Peter sensed something was off. He gathered the whole team together and posed a simple question to the twenty people in the room: “On a scale of 1-10, what is your confidence this project will be delivered?”.

The result was both insightful and unsurprising. There was a clear disconnect between those who were in the detail (developers ratings were 7-9), those who were the recipients of the new system (users rating 3-5) and those who were getting mixed messages (managers rated it 4-6).

This showed the development team was too focused on completing their tasks without considering the project's broader impact. The users were expending a lot of energy complaining about what was going on and being ineffective in getting their concerns heard.

Are we solving the same problem?

It's crucial to ensure everyone – team members, stakeholders, and suppliers – are working towards the same end goal. Clarity on what defines "done" (the metric) and who defines "done" (the owner) is essential but often missed.

Even when there is comprehensive documentation there can be misalignment in the interpretation.

A military project I was involved in fell into this trap. The government believed they were buying the vehicle as Military Off-the-shelf (MOTS). But the requests for adjustments meant the supplier considered it an Research and Design (R&D) project.

This subtle difference in ‘naming’, or what they believed was important, led to significant questions. This difference was never called out, but it showed up in the approach each side took. For example, the government was expecting minimal variance, while the builder was submitting large variances for approval, assuming there wouldn’t be an issue.

This was a wicked situation. One of the characteristics of a wicked problem, as defined by Rittel and Webber [reference] is that ‘a wicked problem can be explained in numerous ways’ and that ‘the choice of explanation determines the nature of the problem’s resolution. Put simply – naming constrains the solution. The subtle act of naming conditions your mindset and drives your expectations without even realizing it.

Does your way of working match what this project needs?

The way of working needs to match the nature of the project. Emergent projects need the right level of freedom to change direction. They need ways of working that are focused on learning and sense-making. Well defined, simple projects need to stick to their plan and governance is about minimizing variance.

In the military example above, the difference in naming drove different expectations, interactions and ways of operating – wasting time, energy and resources.

Proper alignment ensures that energy and creativity are not wasted. It simplifies communication, ensures focus on the right tasks, shortens governance meetings, and fosters a virtuous cycle of ease, trust, and confidence. Eliminating friction through alignment leads to faster and easier project completion.

A simple test for alignment

To check for misalignment, ask these questions individually before sharing with your team:

·      What problem are we are solving?

·      How do we know when we are done?

·      What is your confidence that this project will deliver on time?

·      What stands in the way?

Any divergence, or even an inability to answer those questions, indicates a need to work on how the project is setup.

Eliminating misunderstandings doesn’t just make things easier, it removes drag on the project and that is why alignment creates acceleration.