Invisible progress: how to show value when nothing big has launched yet
From the The Money Files Blog
by Elizabeth Harrin
A blog that looks at all aspects of project and program finances from budgets, estimating and accounting to getting a pay rise and managing contracts.
Written by Elizabeth Harrin from RebelsGuideToPM.com.
Recent Posts
A practical guide to stakeholder influence mapping
Why Your Project Forecast Keeps Changing (and What to Do About It)
Invisible progress: how to show value when nothing big has launched yet
Back ups – are you ready for disaster?
Contingency isn’t spare money: How to use it properly
Categories
accounting,
agile,
ai,
appraisals,
Artificial Intelligence,
audit,
Backlog,
Benchmarking,
benefits,
Benefits Management,
Benefits Realization,
Bias,
books,
budget,
Business Case,
business case,
business case,
Career Development,
Career Development,
carnival,
case study,
Change Management,
checklist,
collaboration tools,
communication,
Communications Management,
competition,
complex projects,
Conferences,
config management,
consultancy,
contingency,
contracts,
corporate finance,
corporate finance,
cost,
Cost Management,
cost management,
credit crunch,
CRM,
data,
data security,
debate,
Decision Making,
delegating,
digite,
earned value,
Education,
Energy and Utilities,
Estimating,
events,
FAQ,
financial management,
financial management,
forecasting,
future,
GDPR,
general,
Goals,
Governance,
green,
Information Technology,
Innovation,
insurance,
interviews,
it,
Knowledge Management,
Leadership,
Lessons Learned,
measuring performance,
Mentoring,
merger,
methods,
metrics,
multiple projects,
negotiating,
Networking,
news,
Olympics,
organization,
Organizational Culture,
outsourcing,
personal finance,
Planning,
pmi,
PMO,
PMO,
Portfolio Management,
portfolio management,
presentations,
privacy policy,
process,
procurement,
product management,
productivity,
Program Management,
project closure,
project data,
project delivery,
Project Success,
project testing,
prototyping,
qualifications,
Quality,
quality,
Quarterly Review,
records,
recruitment,
reports,
requirements,
research,
resilience,
Resource Management,
resources,
risk,
Risk Management,
ROI,
salaries,
Schedule Management,
Scheduling,
scope,
Scope Management,
security,
small projects,
Social Impact,
social impact,
social media,
software,
software,
software,
Stakeholder Management,
stakeholders,
Strategy,
success factors,
supplier management,
team,
Teams,
testing,
testing,
timesheets,
tips,
training,
transparency,
trends,
value management,
vendors,
video,
virtual teams,
workflow
Date
It’s August, and I don’t know about your projects, but I’m working on some where we have made a lot of progress but haven’t actually ‘done’ anything yet. Do you know what I mean? Project managers can spend a lot of time supporting the team before any deliverables get delivered. Things like business case preparation, or solution design. Choosing suppliers and building out proper detailed requirements following ideation. Systems thinking work and as-is process mapping.
All those activities are essential for making sure that when the deliverables happen, they are the right ones and fit for purpose. But it might not look like much is happening to the outside viewer.
And summer is traditionally a time when things slow down, so it might feel to stakeholders that progress has stalled.
However, we have to show that invisible work has value.
Why progress becomes invisible
First, let me explain why I think progress becomes invisible. As you would expect, projects do require some upfront planning, even in agile environments. Someone has to decide what to do, and how it’s going to be done. Some projects need groundwork, prework, integration, whatever you want to call it. For example, I worked on a project where we needed to upgrade another system first so ours would integrate, that’s all important foundations.
The other reason why progress becomes invisible is that you aren’t delivering any benefits yet. The outputs of these early, important phases are less tangible – it’s the agreements, the stakeholder alignment, the expectation setting. And the benefits come later.
Don’t get seen as stuck
You don’t want your project to be considered slow or stuck, because that can reduce stakeholder confidence and pile on the pressure for premature delivery before the team is ready. It also can lead to increased scrutiny because everyone important will want to know what you are doing and why it’s taking so long! And that just adds even more time to the schedule as you navigate all the requests for information while protecting the team who are doing the work.
The foundations are important
We need stakeholders to see that this foundational work is important. The groundwork means the future outcomes are more assured. We are reducing risk and uncertainty. And I know it’s not easy to talk about this stuff and make it seem like it’s actual progress, but we can try.
Reporting the slower bits
When you are talking about what you are doing, make sure to avoid hype. There’s no need to make the activities sound more important or bigger than they are. Be honest about when stakeholders will start to see deliverables or value. A roadmap can help them understand the sequencing as well, and you can include that regularly in conversations to reinforce expectations.
Visibility is a leadership responsibility
Progress doesn’t have to be dramatic to be real, we know that instinctively, yet it often feels like we have to justify ourselves! Part of your role as a project manager is to translate ‘effort’ into ‘understanding’, and also to make sure that people involved in those early stages get the recognition they deserve for their part in the work.
For example, system architects design a solution, but it’s often the deployment or implementation team that are involved in the project celebration at the end, as the architect’s work is long finished. Use these periods that might appear ‘slower’ to external viewers to talk about and celebrate the work that is being done.
Posted on: August 25, 2026 12:00 AM |
Permalink
Comments (6)
Please login or join to subscribe to this item
nvisible progress is still progress—it’s the foundation that makes the visible outcomes possible. Leaders can demonstrate value by making the work behind the scenes measurable: decisions accelerated, risks retired, dependencies resolved, technical debt reduced, customer insights gained, capabilities built, and future options created. Instead of reporting only launches, show outcomes, evidence, learning, and risk reduction. A strong progress narrative answers three questions: What changed? What risk or uncertainty did we remove? What value are we now better positioned to deliver?
When nothing major has launched yet, show value by highlighting the progress that reduces uncertainty and enables future outcomes:
Show risks retired: What major technical, operational, or business risks have been identified and mitigated?
Quantify efficiency gains: Hours saved, processes simplified, defects avoided, or cycle time reduced.
Demonstrate learning: Customer research, prototypes, experiments, and validated assumptions are valuable outcomes.
Highlight capability built: New platforms, reusable components, data foundations, skills, or automation that enable future delivery.
Track decisions accelerated: Show how analysis or experimentation helped the organisation make faster, better decisions.
Show dependencies removed: Identify blockers resolved and teams or systems that can now move forward.
Measure quality improvements: Better reliability, security, maintainability, testing, or compliance can be significant value.
Connect activity to strategy: Explain how today's work directly supports a strategic business objective.
Use leading indicators: Adoption intent, successful experiments, readiness, pipeline, stakeholder confidence, and reduced uncertainty can demonstrate momentum before financial results appear.
A useful leadership message is:
We may not have a major launch yet, but we have reduced risk, validated key assumptions, built critical capabilities, and created a clearer path to measurable business outcomes.
The key is to report evidence of progress, not just activity. We completed 20 tasks is activity; we eliminated a critical integration risk and reduced expected implementation time by 30% demonstrates value.
This resonates. I’ve worked in environments where we were expected to report incremental value on initiatives where the real business value was intentionally designed to materialize well after launch ... sometimes years later.
That creates an important PMO challenge: we should not confuse value realization with visible delivery.
If we are not shipping an app, releasing functionality, or generating immediate revenue, forcing every reporting cycle into a “what value did we deliver this month?” narrative can create the wrong behavior. Teams start translating activity into artificial value just to satisfy the reporting model.
In those phases, I think leadership needs a broader definition of progress.
Progress can be risk retired, uncertainty reduced, decisions made, dependencies resolved, architecture validated, regulatory or operational readiness achieved, stakeholder alignment secured, or optionality preserved.
Those are not benefits realization yet. But they are leading indicators that increase the probability that the future benefits will actually materialize.
For me, that is one of the most important roles of a strong PMO: creating visibility without manufacturing value that does not exist yet, and helping executives distinguish between activity, progress, delivery, and realized business value.
Sometimes the most valuable thing a project does this quarter is make the outcome two years from now significantly more likely.
Sujit Supekar
Project Manager | PMP | Agile | Payment | Product Development| WorldLine
Mh, India
Thanks for sharing,
In practice, projects rarely fail during execution because of poor building—they fail due to weak, unvalidated foundations. Invisible progress is not idle progress; it is foundational debt paid upfront. By framing early-stage value through risk reduction, capability building, and transparent roadmap alignment, project managers can protect team focus, maintain executive trust, and set the project up for long-term success.
"translate ‘effort’ into ‘understanding’, and also to make sure that people involved in those early stages get the recognition they deserve for their part in the work"
I love this. I always have to lead with influence as I have no organizational authority, so I am very big on praising those who volunteer and make sure their superiors and peers know they are helping and the impact that help is having. It leads to more volunteers. People love to be appreciated.
Please Login/Register to leave a comment.
|
"We don't like their sound, and guitar music is on the way out."
- Decca Recording Company, rejecting the Beatles, 1961
|
