The 1:1:1 Principle for Project Plans: Avoiding Chunky Peanut Butter Progress

Lonnie Pacelli is an Accenture/Microsoft veteran with four decades of learnings under his belt. He frequently writes and speaks on leadership, project management, work/life balance, and disability inclusion. Reach him at [email protected] and see more at ProjectManagementAdvisor.com.

  Risk Management   Scheduling  

Scenario #1:

Jean, a project manager, is tracking the status on a four-week task owned by Tom.

Week 1:

Jean: How’s progress, Tom?

Tom: Put us at 25% complete. On track.

Week 2:

Jean: Still on track, Tom?

Tom: Yup. Will be done on time. Put me at 50% done.

Week 3:

Jean: You still tracking to end of next week, Tom?

Tom: Well, I’m working through a couple things, but still planning to finish on time. Put me at 70%

Jean: 70%? You still confident you’re going to deliver on time?

Tom: Yeah.

Week 4:

Jean: Can I mark this as complete?

Tom: Not quite. Few things to clean up. Put me at 90%.

Jean: What’s your new complete date?

Tom: Next week.

Week 5:

Jean: Can I mark this as complete?

Tom: Close.

Jean: This is impacting other work. Can you give me an honest assessment of when it will be done?

Tom: Next week.

Jean: Next week? Are you confident?

Tom: Yes.

Week 6:

Jean: Tom, is this done?

Tom: Well…

Scenario #2:

Jean is creating a project plan and identifying owners for tasks with the project team. Bill, Chen and Ranjiv are working on the enterprise architecture.

Jean: Okay, who owns defining the enterprise architecture?

Bill: Assign it to “Architecture Team.”

Jean: Architecture team?

Chen: Yes, we’re all working on it.

Two weeks later:

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