Strategic Project Management Made Simple, 2nd Edition

5Question #1—What Are We Trying to Accomplish and Why?

Management by objectives works—if you know the objectives. Ninety percent of the time you do not.

—Peter Drucker

FIGURE 5.1 The Objectives Column Summarizes Your Project Hypothesis

Define and Align Key Objectives

The most vital planning step in any project is to be clear about Why you are doing it.

Beginning with Why gives you a higher and broader perspective. It is like hovering above a maze in a helicopter to more clearly see your solution path through the course. But if you stay at the ground level—the tasks—and have not seen a map of the maze, you will encounter more dead ends.

By understanding the Why, you can then apply your expertise to determine What the team must produce or deliver.

Defining and aligning your key Objectives builds a defensible business case and demonstrates why your idea is worthy of support. This means revisiting the Objectives column of the LogFrame matrix, as shown in Figure 5.1.

This chapter explores project design logic, and shares several application examples. It begins with a historic example of a very ambitious Why. If you are above a certain age, you will remember this event. If not, this first-person account of a proud moment in American history illustrates the power of a very big Why.

Let's Go to the Moon!

By the time John F. Kennedy became president in January 1961, the United ...