Leading Great Projects

When you’re running an important project there are two famous but competing sayings. 

First is “good is the enemy of great”. This means don’t let good enough stand in the way of achieving greatness.  Yet I once had a customer that pursued good enough.  They were simply satisfied with getting the minimum requirements they wanted and finishing the job.  In the end, they did not get all the capabilities they could have had from our solution.  Was it really worth their time and effort to perform the project?

The second saying is “Perfection is the enemy of done”.   Another customer tried to make sure every decision was exact, so they only made group decisions and constantly revisited decisions.   They struggled to hit every deliverable.

Now nobody wants to fly an airline that says “that’s good enough”.  Yet, constrained by scope, cost, and time - we will fly understanding the experience might be less than perfection as long as we arrive on time, at a reasonable cost, and in one piece.

Look, we all want to lead great projects.  So find that balance! Encourage your team to strive for perfection while leading the team to stay within your project constraints. While you may not achieve perfection, you will achieve great results.

That's my 8020 Framework.  What's yours?