Every Project Should Connect the Dots

In today's business world, implementing projects is the way that things get done. Projects are conceived and reviewed nearly every day, but not every project is created equal. Some projects can create results that go straight to the bottom line, while others languish to generate any tangible results.

Hopefully, everyone will experience their fair share of good projects in their career. Good projects that deliver what was promised on-time and on-budget and ends with a ticker tape parade through the cubicle aisles.

Unfortunately, you will probably experience a few bad projects along the way as well. Projects can go bad when they are funded and approved without a clear understanding of how, or when, they will generate value for the company. Obviously, it's important to know what your project will do for your company before you begin. In fact, every project should first connect the dots to stakeholder value BEFORE they are approved.

Nobody wants to willingly volunteer for another bad project. So, before you raise your hand to volunteer for that next project, take a moment make sure that the project covers the basics; Make sure that the project will address a critical business need and deliver tangible results that contribute to stakeholder value.

Determining if the project addresses a critical business need is subjective at best, as businesses still operate by the principle that the squeaky wheel gets the grease. Contribution to stakeholder value, however, should be an objective attribute that leaves little room for interpretation.

In order to clearly align projects to stakeholder value, we recommend that you develop a value hierarchy that describes how different activities contribute to stakeholder value for your company. Once established, the value hierarchy can serve as a framework for connecting each and every project to stakeholder value.

A well-defined value hierarchy can help to align projects with activities that generate the most value for the company. It can identify where multiple projects might be competing for the same benefit or identify where there may be a void of necessary projects. It can also help to weed out those projects that aren’t clear aligned to stakeholder value. Simply put, connecting projects to activities that maximize stakeholder value is just good business.

HOW TO CREATE A VALUE HIERARCHY

To create your own value hierarchy, begin with the highest form of value for your company, which should be stakeholder value. This represents the total value of your company to any person or stakeholder who has a financial interest. Then define the key dimensions that create or drain stakeholder value. Common value dimensions include Cost, Revenue, and Asset Value, each of which directly contribute to, or detract from, stakeholder value.

Next, define the set of value levers that influence each value dimension (e.g. revenue, cost, asset value). For example, the Revenue dimension can be influenced by adding more customers (increase breadth), selling more to existing customers (increase depth), or improving customer loyalty (increase duration).

Continue to define the value hierarchy by connecting lower-level activities to a node in the hierarchy. The final value hierarchy can be as detailed as your company requires. For illustration purposes, we provide a simplified value hierarchy below.

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our complete customer value hierachy.

CONNECT THE DOTS TO STAKEHOLDER VALUE

To reap the benefits of the value hierarchy, connect each active or proposed project to the lowest level in your value hierarchy. If the project cannot be clearly connected to the value hierarchy, it should probably be redefined, repurposed, or cancelled altogether.

Connecting projects to a value hierarchy can have other benefits too. A value hierarchy creates a common language of value among various project teams, helps to align projects to the company’s strategic direction, and can help to identify areas that are either being over or under served.

Although utilizing a value hierarchy is no panacea, it can go a long way to helping your company determine which set of projects can provide the maximum contribution to stakeholder value. In our experience, companies that have learned to utilize a formal value hierarchy have found it to be a valuable tool for strategic planning, budgeting, and portfolio & program management.

You can find more information about how to develop a value hierarchy in the whitepaper titled How to Find Your Customer Value.

Most Don't Have a Customer Experience Solution

Most organizations I have worked with recognize the power of the customer experience, but the majority don't know how to affect it. Organizationally, the customer experience is 'owned' across functions and across department heads. Very rarely have I seen where any one executive 'owns' the entire customer experience.

As a result, organizations struggle to employ a customer experience solution to improve their customer experience. They fail to organize initiatives that are broad enough to effect the entire customer experience, and they lack a clear customer experience methodology or customer experience approach focused on improving the customer experience.

Most CEOs don't think about 'How to Improve the Customer Experience', they are more focused on revenue growth and cost avoidance - not recognizing a complete customer experience program - focused on the end-to-end customer experience as a critical factor in strategy execution. Step 1 - Make your Customers Sing.

Executives need to ask themselves 'Are you really customer centric?'

These reasons are why ClearBrick was founded, to help organizations solve their business problems on their own - and why the Customer Experience Solution was the first solution kit that we focused on. It is a complete customer experience methodology and customer experience roadmap to help your organization improve your customer experience.

Project Managment: You Don't Know What You Don't Know

I have consulted with many Fortune 100 companies throughout my career. I always find it interesting how different the cultures can be, and how these differences influence the way projects get managed and work gets executed. One thing I find is that the discipline of project management varies greatly across organizations. However, I also find that project managers don't realize how much it varies, and where they sit across this variation.

What I mean by this is that project managers always believe that they are doing 'project management' as if it is a binary question...either you do it or you don't. However, what I find is that there are significant degrees of variation in the discipline, robustness and effectiveness of project management.

In some organizations, simply because there is someone who has a title of project manager, they believe they 'do project management'. However, those same organizations will lack the simple disciplines of issue, risk, scope and timeline management. In one large retail organization, they prided themselves on their ability to simply muscle through a project. They lacked the planning discipline, but thought it was OK, because they will simply work all day and all night to make a project successful. In fact, they were proud of this attribute. While this was true in small, less complex projects, it proved to scale as an approach to a very large, complex transformation project. Ultimately, this lack of discipline had a major impact on their customers.

I've also seen the position of PM minimizedto an administrative assistant of the person actually responsible for the project. In my experience, this is woefully ineffective and inadequate. The model that I have seen effective time and time again, is a project manager who is actually in charge of executing the project - with both business and IT people reporting into the PM. I also find that simply having a strong PM discipline isn't enough - because this focuses too much on the administrative aspects of a project. The softer elements of Project Management are paramount, but aren't covered by the PMI or PMP certification.

So yes, while solving business problems and improving business performance requires project management discipline. Often, however, project management discipline alone won’t guarantee success. Successful projects rely on another subtle element that is often overlooked: Effective project management. Read more in the free Clearbrick article on Effective Project Management. In this article, we draw the distinction between project management discipline and project management effectiveness and identify the key factors that contribute to effective project management.

Many project managers and organizations simply don't know what they don't know about exactly how well they do project management.

Customer Experience is About the Process not the Shtick

As I interact with companies in my daily to-dos. I find myself amused at the different elements of my customer experience and the lengths that some company will go to in order to affect the wrong elements of my experience.

Companies seem very willing to invest heavily in what I call the shtick of the experience but ignore the true process that creates value. Whether it is hanging rock-n-roll memorabilia on the wall, hanging a row boat from the ceiling or having the customer experience staff wear the same goofy uniform - companies invest in the shtick. Very rarely have I seen companies focus on a complete customer experience solution.

In their article on the "Total Customer Experience", Berry, Carbone and Haeckel outline correctly that "Offering products and services alone is no longer enough: Organizations must provide their customers with satisfactory experiences. Competing on this dimension means orchestrating all the 'clues' that people detect in the buying process"

So, if the customer experience is about the buying process, and not the shtick, then organizations must determine what the buying process is. - So I wonder, how many organizations have even mapped out their buying process and understand where it begins, ends and more importantly where they fail to convert, or fail to satisfy their customer's demands?

My 'ahh haa' for the day... Companies need to focus on the process, not the shtick. As that is where companies create real value for their customers.