Be Successful at Projects in SMEs

The idea behind projects isn't complicated, but lots of projects still fail in both large and small companies. A project can be defined as bringing about change delivering something that you don't have now that is not business as usual. So far, so good, that doesn't sound that hard to do, how much could go wrong?

The truth is that there are a myriad of ways in which a project can go wrong. A lack of senior level ownership, no-one being held responsible for the delivery of the project, a continuously changing scope with very few requirements, nothing in place to show that the project has delivered what was required. The list goes on.

Then there's all those different methodologies that are supposed to enable you to deliver projects for you if only you follow them thoroughly, but in many instances they just add complexity to what should be a simple and easy path to follow. This is particularly the case within small and medium enterprises where a methodology would swamp the project and bog it down in red tape that really isn't adding value.

So, how do you up the odds on delivering a successful project? My company, GreenBOLD, has recently written a further one-pager in it's 10 Ways series which outlines ten ways to have a successful project. Nothing in there is rocket science, in fact some would say its common sense. If that were the case, why are all ten points so often ignored? It's not a guaranteed method for success, but at least by checking off the points it will make success more likely.

Ownership is first on the list, someone somewhere must own the project, orphaned projects are doomed to failure. There must be an interest in the project at a senior level, preferably someone on the board. Second on the list is Responsibility. Having someone responsible for the project is absolutely fundamental, they can then take responsibility for the rest of the items in our document.

Unfortunately projects are often given to people without the time to dedicate to delivering the project properly either through time pressures or through a lack of experience. This again most often dooms a project to failure. This is something that my company, GreenBOLD can help with: We provide as part of our service part-time project management services from people who have a wealth of project management experience in corporate and SME environments. Utilising a GreenBOLD professional will give you a far higher chance of success than anything else, check our website for details and tell us about your project via the contact form.

Details matter to fickle customers like me

I heard a story once about an airline that found it was losing customers to a rival airline because the rival airline had an additional sausage in their breakfast. I don't know if it's true or not, but I can well believe it. When customers can make a choice, they can be incredible fickle.

However, is it always best to go to this level of detail with a customer during a project, it's not always clear, particularly when you're trying to work out what your customer's customer will want. I guess the answer is: Sometimes. The problem is knowing when that "Sometimes" actually is. I've just witnessed this whilst on holiday and I'm struggling to understand how it could have been missed when they got so much else right.

My family and I stayed in a family all inclusive resort - lots of kids of all ages. Very child friendly, ramps for prams everywhere, kiddie friendly pools, kids-clubs, soft drinks on tap, etc, etc. The whole place was geared up to accomodate families. Except in one fundamental area: The toilets, the male toilets to be precise.

In a male toilet, we men know that there will always be lots of urinals and just a couple of cubicals or stalls. These toilets were no different. The problem though was that all the urinals were at an adult male height, none could be used by children. So, the children had to use the cubicals. This led to frequent queues whilst the urinals stood empty. On top of that in one particular toilet, only one cubical was working, compounding the problem. Wouldn't you have thought that child-friendly urinals and wash-basins would have been a no-brainer. Apparently not.

It didn't affect the whole holiday, but we did have a few anxious moments as we waited for a cubicle to come free, naturally children never tend to know they need to pee before they *really* need to pee. In future though, and this is where I'm the fickle customer, I'd be very much influenced in to choosing a resort that had child friendly toilets over the resort we've just been to even if it cost more money.

Essentially they've potentially lost a customer because of one stupid little thing. They could have solved the problem by putting some steps in front of some of the urinals, but they've not even done that, I can't believe I'm the first to complain, or maybe I am...