• ●
  Has sufficient time to focus on the project.
• ●
  Is empowered by executive leadership to make project funding, schedule, scope, business process, business requirement, and resource decisions.
• ●
  Understand the project process.
• ●
  Provides the business vision and resources to get the project done.
• ●
  Keeps the project moving in the right direction.
  
• ●
  Maintains an active role in the project through completion but empowers most decisions and responsibilities to team members.
  

There's bad news to report. Team members need to feel safe communicating their actual status rather than what people want to hear.

Half the battle to achieve successful project outcomes is dealing with reality, no matter how unpleasant.

All projects will have moments of “unpleasant reality.”

• ●
  How leadership and team members respond will determine a project's success.
• ●
  One of the most critical tasks in running a successful project is effectively dealing with reality and promptly resolving issues, problems, and conflicts.

A level of detail where leadership can monitor activities, deliverables, dates, and effort through completion.

• ●
  All team members provide input on this plan and understand their roles in successfully executing it.
• ●
  The plan is fact-based, e.g., quantified work products and effort driven by scope, requirements, and schedule, and tightly linked to business requirements and expectations.

The plan should be based on using a proven project process and framework. Using your organization's standard methodology saves time and effort on projects.

• ●
  A methodology is organized around project stages, e.g., decide, design, develop, and deploy.
• ●
  It's an activity-driven process for delivering project outcomes.
• ●
  It describes every activity and step in detail so that the team understands what’s required to deliver a project.

More frequent, smaller releases versus one mega-release.

• ●
  A good rule of thumb is if a project plan can’t deliver a meaningful release in less than three months, then re-scope and re-plan the effort.
• ●
  Research supports the idea that the probability of failure increases with project size. Therefore, keep projects smaller and release features in smaller chunks.

Smaller releases fly in the face of how many organizations budget.

• ●
  Projects typically get one budget allocation to deliver.
• ●
  This drives business constituents to add everything, including the kitchen sink, to scope, fearing they won’t receive additional funding for subsequent releases.

Push for more flexibility in the budgeting process to receive support for multiple project funding allocations and releases.

Is the project manager.

• ●
  The project manager must have the experience and skills to facilitate and resolve issues, conflicts, and disagreements. Most projects encounter all three.
• ●
  A project manager who openly confronts and resolves challenges quickly is probably the most important ingredient for executing a successful project.

• ●
  ETCs reflect the estimate of the work remaining to complete a project.
• ●
  Poor ETC management is a leading cause of project budget overrun surprises.
• ●
  Project sponsors and business constituents should validate the ETC process with the project manager to ensure honest, realistic, and timely ETC updates occur.

Analogous to municipal building codes for the construction of buildings.

• ●
  IT standards provide an organization’s “building code” for developing and deploying systems.
• ●
  IT standards are important for leveraging existing organizational skills and knowledge, minimizing the total cost of ownership (TCO) of the solution, and reducing risks.
• ●
  Hardware, software, and methods that aren’t standard may result in higher costs, more risk, and potentially less solution stability.

Note: There may be situations that require consideration of new standards or exceptions to existing standards—base new standards and technology decisions on a clear risk–value assessment.