Small Steps

  ProjectsAtWork  

In the face of unmet requirements and slipped deadlines, how do you begin to catch up? Here are seven suggestions for making realistic progress, including a combination of ruthless prioritization, transparency and positivity (which is not the same as magical thinking).

1. Pick one small thing as a demonstration, and make it successful. For example, if we’re having trouble planning and estimating, then identify one very small project for careful planning and estimation. Focus the team on completing just that — mostly on time and reasonably on spec. This becomes our existence proof for improvement: having done a better job once on something small, we can do it again.

2. Ruthlessly prioritize. There are years of backlogs to address, and our newly hopeful development team can still only handle a few items at a time. Make sure that the next handful of small improvements is truly the most important. For everything else, “nice to have” translates to “not this year.”

3. Don’t confuse small with big. As soon as a few tiny things start arriving on schedule, internal stakeholders will be lobbying for massive overhauls. (“If the engineering team can rewrite a report in a week, can’t they re-architect all of our business processes in a month?”)

4. Be transparent. Explain your “do one small thing right&rdquo…

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