How often have I sat in webinars or seminars, read books or articles, and participated in or facilitated lessons learned workshops to find that magic ingredient of delivering project success.
As I think back to one of my most recent projects at Burges Salmon, I am struck that it contained many of the success factors as identified by the Association of Project Management (APM) in its report on project success back in 2014.[1]
Despite the text books, training courses and accreditations that tell us our investments should be driven from corporate strategy, in truth many internal projects derive from individual teams keen to drive forward certain areas of work from within their sphere of influence.
Yes, the business case templates will all contain a section asking about strategic context and yes, these will all be filled in with differing degrees of conviction. However, only occasionally have I seen projects or programmes originating from an organisation’s core strategy.
Nonetheless, our latest project at Burges Salmon – which refreshed our firm’s strategy and launched a completely new brand; website; image and logo – is one such example.
Professional service firms, such as law firms, sell their services in highly competitive markets. To grow, they need to be able to differentiate themselves from their competitors: within that context, a firm’s brand is one of its key assets.
In that drive towards competitiveness, our Project team was given a distinct goal: to develop a strong, clear and simple brand that would support the firm’s strategy for growth.
Importantly, because that goal derived from a strong strategic imperative it remained constant throughout the duration of the project. The firm’s leadership has not wavered from its original vision and that has aided all manner of discussions throughout the last few years.
With a clear strategic rationale, project objectives were focused from the start. All stakeholders clearly understood the project’s goal, which minimised conflict, particularly at the portfolio level with vying projects, and that allowed the delivery teams to shape the work accordingly.
With a strong strategic rationale, it is perhaps not surprising that leadership and effective governance has come a little easier than can so often be the case in other projects.
Many project and programme managers will have managed boards where there is insufficient seniority to facilitate easy decision-making.
However, a project that relates directly to a strategic goal lends itself to a project board that comprises key decision makers and ensures clear reporting lines through the corporate governance structures.
This is particularly beneficial in partnership organisations that have multiple business owners. Law firms tend to be organised to deal with the challenge of many senior stakeholders.
With numerous partners, the project manager needs a robust stakeholder engagement plan that will aid broad acceptance of any business change proposals.
Where better an example of this than a re-branding and strategy refresh project that was not simply about logos and colours; it was more importantly about strategic direction, culture, values and people.
Through effective project governance and stakeholder engagement the firm’s partners and the project team have been able to ensure that everyone within the firm can clearly articulate our strategy and brand proposition.
It is of little surprise that a project manager would say that good project planning is an ingredient of project success. Often in business however project managers are asked to proceed at such pace that there is little time for initial planning, time scales are unrealistic and the kick off phase is in-effective.
When a project is implemented alongside the firm’s strategic objectives however there is much tighter scrutiny; particularly when success is linked to how an organisation positions itself within its core sectors.
In the context of our brand project, I have been struck by how thoughtful the partners were about our core messages, about our profile with clients and potential recruits, and the development of our people so that they can communicate our brand messages persuasively and consistently.
Planning, I would argue, has also been aided by senior partners stipulating, and then holding the team accountable, to an end date. This helped the planning team focus effort and resource.
Such planning clarity has also helped in the management of dependencies, particularly in the context of this assignment where the timing of the brand project needed to coincide precisely with a new website.
As a young professional, I always recall a senior colleague imparting the following words of wisdom: “If you want to be successful, surround yourself with successful people.”
I have carried these words with me for many years and have seen time and again the importance of how having good quality people on project teams leads to successful delivery.
In this context, what defines project success? Yes – delivering to time cost quality, yes – delivering business benefit, might it also be developing our people?
We cannot constantly surround ourselves with project teams filled with people with years of experience. As project leaders we need teams of different competency levels so that we also develop the next generation of successful people.
We need experienced hands who are expert in their professional field, and we also need those who are at an early stage in their career. They bring with them a new vibe, extra enthusiasm and fresh insight.
Our brand project has given a number of individuals an opportunity to stand out; their reputation and personal credibility has been enhanced. A few have been ‘spotted’, a few have been pushed outside of their comfort zone.
A few, at times, have felt the stresses and strains of project delivery. They have all however shown tremendous resilience, grown new skills and shone.
In the context of this key strategic project, some of the team had worked together on previous change programmes and were therefore able to apply lessons learned directly to the work. This lent itself to high degrees of trust.
Perhaps most importantly the core team was made up of professionals from the majority of the firm’s business areas including Marketing, HR, IT, Training, Client Experience, Facilities and Project Management.
As I reflect on the previous four ingredients of success, it is clear that what binds them all, what delivers that magic formula, is commitment.
So often I have seen projects with partial commitment and that manifests itself in different ways: perhaps not everyone on the board agrees with a project’s priority, perhaps line managers are reluctant to give up resource to a project if it takes people away from their business as usual tasks, perhaps some in the project team see their tasks as tasks alone and don’t buy into the project objectives, perhaps the project’s sponsor is too thinly spread to give a project due focus.
With this strategic project, all that changed.
Once you have your most senior people driving a project, who are able to articulate a clear vision and who put their own credibility on the line by investing their time, so the other components fall into place.
Our brand project at Burges Salmon has been a lesson in commitment, and that is ultimately what enabled us to deliver a successful project.
Abi Williams is Head of Programme Management at independent UK law firm Burges Salmon LLP
[1] APM, Factors in Project Success, 2014
