You’ve made your schedule. Finished within budget. And achieved your quality goals. But was your project successful?
When I train or coach or mentor Project Managers, I speak about the four “D’s” of project management. The four things that I believe you have to do to ensure success. My fourth “D” is “Do it better”. You can bring a project to it’s conclusion. You can walk up and down the bridge of your ship with your hands clasped behind your back, smiling just a little as your boat glides into the dock. But all you have done is finished your tasks. You need to do more.
You are the captain of the ship. Once your vessel is safely moored you have to go into the port authority office and report your arrival. You have to make sure you are meeting their docking requirements. You need to contact the owners of the ship and report your safe arrival to them. If you are a really good captain, you are standing at the disembarkation point wishing all your passengers well on the next part of their journey, and asking them for feedback on their experience. You go and talk to each crew member and thank them for their efforts. And also get their feedback.
You know your project has been successful only when you talk to your sponsor, your stakeholders and your team, discuss the achievements with them, and take on board any feedback they may have – good as well as bad. It may very well be that the goals you achieved at the end of the project are not the ones you started off with. But you can still have a successful project if you kept everyone “on board” all the way through the journey.
And no matter how successful we are, we can always do it better next time.