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.
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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