Clear communications include unambiguously stating what the team should optimize for.
Ensuring your team understands what you are asking them to optimize for is an often-overlooked aspect of clear communication. After the team understands the specific problem to be solved or broader goal to be achieved and it’s time to begin work, there is an important question to answer: “what are we optimizing for?” The answer to this question drives behavior and is fundamental to establishing expectations with constituents and articulating guardrails for the team.
As an example, say you are the leader of a contact center and in alignment with your strategy you are starting a large initiative with two strategic goals: (1) improving efficiency by 3% per year for three years while (2) improving customer satisfaction by 1 point in year one, 1.5 points in year two, and 3 points in year three. Based on discussions with partners, sponsors, and others you jointly decide schedule is most important. Everyone is willing, if needed, to increase the estimated cost of the effort by up to 10% to achieve the desired launch date of January 1 for the first release, while accepting the minimum required functionality (a good guardrail statement!). As work progresses, it becomes clear team members responsible for defining required scope have a mindset of “if we don’t get ‘it’ now, we’ll never get ‘it’ so put ‘it’ all in.” Compounding the problem, they instruct other team members not to go over budget.
It doesn’t take long for many team members to see it’s impossible to do everything being asked within the defined schedule and budget. To not disappoint leadership, the team communicates they will try. Nothing is stopping them, yet, and since nothing is preventing immediate progress, team leaders communicate a green status even though they don’t believe the team can deliver to expectations (status is green at this moment, but they know it’s unlikely to last). Too much is being included in the scope of work to abide by the direction to optimize for the launch date. Schedule starts to slip, and the quality of work declines. You and other constituents are now deeply concerned about the launch and being able to “make the business case;” the benefits in the business case depend on a January 1 launch. You remind team leaders everyone agreed to optimize for delivery date, not scope. Those requesting scope must reduce their ask in order to make January 1. Team members begin to negotiate scope, and disappointment arises as some wonder why they can’t have what they asked for, believing it is the minimum. And a downward spiral in conversations begins. This is a painfully common pattern.
While there are many contributing factors to the breakdown described, there are two overarching issues. First, the team did not adhere to what was to be optimized. Schedule was stated as being most important and, therefore, the work needed to be optimized to achieve the schedule. However, the team was acting differently. They were optimizing for scope. Maybe not even optimizing but perhaps maximizing. Either way, they were not acting in alignment with the stated direction and the team clearly did not feel empowered to force a change given how things devolved. The second overarching issue has to do with forcing the team to align scope and schedule rather than free them to focus on outcomes and benefits. I will discuss outcomes and benefits in upcoming blog posts.
Oftentimes, in a world of project delivery (whether building your dream house, planning a wedding, working on a company project, or any other), you will hear a project manager speak to the triple constraints of scope, schedule, and cost. Many add quality as a fourth constraint. The point of articulating these constraints is to force a conversation around what is to be optimized for. If we want cost to come in at $X, then we must manage scope and we may not have 100% quality. If we want absolutely zero defects or potential problems, then schedule and cost cannot be fixed. We all want what we want (scope) when we want it (schedule) at a fixed low price (cost) and we want it perfect (quality). Although leaders inherently know this is not realistic, they do not always act accordingly, which puts pressure on teams. Only one of those four can be an independent variable. Once you choose one, the others become dependent variables.
The triple constraints (or four) are not only relevant to project work. Look across operations and strategy and planning work and you will find the same constraints apply to those types of work, too. One of the most important things you can do is work with your peers and other constituents to be clear and consistent in word and in action. This is never more important than when deciding what you are optimizing for and leading your team to execute accordingly.
Share your thoughts below.
Have you ever been in a situation where you weren’t clear what leaders were asking you to optimize for? What troubles did that cause and how did you overcome them?
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