The Project Goal is NOT to Complete Tasks!
It’s important to remember that completing the project Gantt chart tasks or agile backlog items is not the ultimate project goal. Here are the true objectives project managers and their teams must achieve for successful projects.
- Build capable stakeholders. All products or services a project provides should be easy to use, fit for purpose, and work with existing business processes. Stakeholders should be educated so the transition to those new products or services runs smoothly. They should be able to use them without help, and, if needed, help should be easy to obtain. efficiently get help needed.
- Be a catalyst for learning and improvement. Projects always provide learning opportunities, such as risks that arise or relationships to establish with new vendors. In addition, every project involves estimation. Enabling learning and improving estimation accuracy by capturing the necessary information are valuable objectives that should be incorporated into every project.
- Achieve the business goals. Projects are launched with a specific business outcome in mind: to deliver business value! That value might not be measurable immediately upon project completion. In fact, it could take several months to realize value. Project managers should consider their projects a success only when that value is achieved and recognized by stakeholders. Note: Establishing targets and processes to measure success should be part of every project!
- Set the table for future projects. Projects are rarely standalone endeavors. They are part of a series of improvement steps or pieces of a long-term strategy to change a business. The completion of every project should facilitate the launch of future projects to expand the benefits delivered to the business.
Think through the activities you perform as a project manager. Does your approach to project management help achieve these objectives? If not, what steps can you take to include them?
For more about objectives, check out my Project Management Foundations course.
Coming Up
Be on the lookout for the updated version of my course, Learning Microsoft Project. Get up to speed quickly with Microsoft Project. Learn just the essentials you need to know to create projects, add tasks, assign resources, and run reports.
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Be on the lookout for the updated version of my course, Learning Microsoft Project. Get up to speed quickly with Microsoft Project. Learn just the essentials you need to know to create projects, add tasks, assign resources, and run reports.