The Project Book

PART V DECISIONS

While your stewardship charts how you behave, lead and communicate, it’s the decisions you make that will ultimately be the key differentiator between success and failure in a project.

Writing in the Harvard Business Review, Daniel Goleman notes, ‘A person who lacks self-awareness is apt to make decisions that bring on inner turmoil by treading on buried values. The decisions of self-aware people mesh with their values; consequently, they often find work to be energising’. Not just energising, but inspiring too. Self-aware individuals can talk eloquently about the vision of the project and how its deliverables will bring that vision to life. You want to create a feeling in other people that you are passionate and positive about the possibilities the project brings to the organisation.

Seth Godin says in his book Tribes, ‘Leaders commit to a vision and make decisions based on that commitment’. It’s important to ensure that the project manager shares this passion and vision and that you both clearly understand who makes what decision and when. This sounds easy, but in practice I consistently see organisations suffer from decision confusion (who makes it and when) or, worse, decision avoidance (that’s not my decision to make).

Decision making lies at the heart of good governance, yet when you turn to the textbooks it’s no wonder people get confused. The Project Management Institute, in its Governance of Portfolios, Programs and Projects — A Practice Guide, declares, ...