I can predict the success or failure of any project (and so can you)
Here's my "secret" for only picking projects that end well: 11 simple leading indicators will tell you if your project is going to succeed or fail.
I was asked to be the lead architect on what sounded like a great project. It was in the Fintech space — basically, updating a financial services company with new tech, new ways of working.
The project had great backing from our client and my own employer. It didn’t lack for resources or budget. Quite the opposite, the pockets were deep on both sides.
And the product was “sticky.” I call a product “sticky” when it brings something unique to market, something that can’t be replaced easily. Strategically, well-aligned inventions that practically guarantee success.
To top it all off, our team had amazing technical knowledge and expertise in the space. Our client, the Fintech, brought substantial technical resources, with decades of experience and industry knowledge.
Despite all this, I remember telling my boss, “I think we should walk away from this project.” So, why did I tell my boss we should walk away?
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A lesson in leading indicators
We didn’t walk away. The project kicked off with high-fives and a lot of positive sentiment. Our team mobilized and dove right in, doing what we do very well — rapidly engaging, immediately implementing modern design practices, and aiming for an operational proof of concept quickly.
At the same time, I was picking up a few “yellow flags” with our client.
We couldn’t seem to get much done without a lot of meetings. Our client was, for all intents and purposes, a bank. That means conservative, thoughtful, slow and in many regards, rooted in “old ways.” That translated into a lot of resistance to anything that smelled non-traditional.
Keep in mind, we had to been brought in to modernize the Fintech. To introduce change, move faster, adopt better technology and development process. And that was the spirit of the engagement — our sponsor at the Fintech wanted to leave a legacy. A shiny new future built on a modern new product.
And yet, we started to feel like we had no voice within our client. We’d bring new ideas to the table, new ways of getting things done faster, with new technology — and we hit a brick wall of skepticism and an implicit need for more and more buy-in. By “implicit buy-in,” I mean new stakeholders popping up, voicing their doubt and uncertainty. As more and more stakeholders got involved, less was accomplished.
In the first couple of months our effort shifted from a focused, rapid prototype, to putting all our time into trying to get consensus. We found ourselves on the outside, trying to change things on the inside — like the Fintech’s rigid delivery pipeline and their dated development practices.
Throughout it all, we were still accountable. We still had to stick to our schedule, hit those milestones we had optimistically set — and yet, we had no authority to change the status quo. No authority to put that modern delivery pipeline in place, because we were walled off from making those changes.
We did establish some early wins. Our rapid design process impressed quite a few technologists in the Fintech. We ran a few demos (purely on our own systems, since we still had little access to the Fintech’s infrastructure). Those demos won kudos from our project sponsor, who was looking ahead to his legacy and retirement.
But those internal voices kept pushing back, saying “this isn’t how we do things here.” Conversations started to shift, becoming defensive about missing our own goals.
We were being positioned as a vendor that was late, potentially over budget. A vendor that wasn’t willing to work within the limited and archaic methods the Fintech had been using for the past 20 years.
We had no champion within the Fintech that could defend us. Our project sponsor already had one foot out the door, lining up for retirement. He was distracted, and his voice was already diminished. He didn’t have the influence we needed to effectively push big change into the organization, and the organization itself didn’t see the value of his imagined legacy. And that meant we had no authority. We were accountable for all the wild promises, but we couldn’t effect any change.
From the outset, failure was predictable: We had to work with old technology, using siloed, waterfall techniques that were 20 years out of date. Yet we were expected to deliver something brand new in record-breaking time. Our original goal was to have a production ready system in 9 months, something that could conceivably be put in user’s hands. But we were working with an organization that thought in terms of 2 or even 3 years being a reasonable product release timeline. Just getting minor feature changes out the door took 6 months, minimum.
That’s three leading indicators, visible to us on day one, that said “walk away.” We didn’t have a champion with influence, and we weren’t a partner that had the ability to create change, we were just a vendor. On top of that, our sponsor at the Fintech seemed misaligned with his own organization.
I’ll talk more about leading indicators, all 11 of them, that you can use to accurately predict your success — or failure.
Ultimately, this project did fail. Leadership between our organizations never achieved the kind of alignment needed for a project of this scale. Consequently, our team was never able to deliver a modern, innovative solution. There was a lack of trust that eventually led to arguing over contract terms, instead of collaborating on a solution.
We should have walked away. We didn’t, because the carrot was just too big — but unfortunately, it was a carrot that had always been out of reach.
This is one case that sticks in my mind, because I knew we should walk away. And while my employer decided not to, I still could have. Since then, I’ve learned to stick to my convictions. That’s why I have my “11 leading indicators” for project success. I apply them rigorously.
Leading or trailing?
Trailing indicators are easier to see than leading indicators. Trailing indicators tend to be pretty obvious. For instance, “we are over-budget” or “the project is late.” The problem with trailing indicators is that it’s too late to prevent the problem. It might not be too late to correct course — but, sometimes it is.
Far better is to know your leading indicators, those conditions, pressures and messages that tell you where you are heading before you get there.
Over the past twenty-odd years, I’ve put a lot of thought into my 11 leading indicators. I’ve also mapped out how they relate to both healthy and unhealthy trailing indicators.
11 leading indicators
I already introduced three of the 11 indicators: Having a champion, being a partner, and being aligned across the organization. Below are all 11 indicators, along with a more detailed explanation of what each indicator means and why it’s important. I’ve highlighted the potential outcome when an indicator is missing from your project.
Following the 11 indicators, I’ve also put together two more lists, my “trailing indicators.” One is my list of “what looks good,” my positive indicators that suggest you are on the path to success.
Then, there’s my “what looks bad.” This is my list of yellow flags, warnings that you’ve gone off the rails. Both lists have pointers back to the root cause — the leading indicator that could have predicted the inevitable outcome, so you can easily pinpoint cause and effect.
First, here are the leading indicators. The preconditions and attributes that set you up for success:
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