Blue Sky Index

  A project can look healthy on paper and still be heading in the wrong direction. The tasks are being completed. Meetings are happening. The team is busy. Reports are being updated. Yet the deadline keeps moving, an important dependency is still unresolved, or the work being completed is no longer closely connected to what the project was meant to deliver. This is where data becomes useful. Optimizingproject outcomes with data is not about putting every project activity into a dashboard or measuring people against a long list of numbers. It is about having enough useful information to understand what is happening, what has changed and what needs a manager's attention. For a project manager or business owner, that can make a real difference to the quality of everyday decisions. Start With the Outcome, Not the Numbers One of the easiest mistakes to make is deciding what to measure before deciding what the project needs to accomplish. Imagine a company is working on a ...

Most project plans are written with the best information available at the time. The team knows what it wants to achieve. The deadline has been agreed. Responsibilities have been discussed, tasks have been listed and everyone has a reasonable idea of what needs to happen next. Then the project starts. A customer asks a question nobody expected. Someone notices a problem with the original approach. A supplier changes its timeline. A team member suggests an easier way of doing something. During research, the team finds an opportunity that was not visible when the plan was written. Now the project has a choice to make. Should the team stick rigidly to the original plan, or should it stop and consider whether the new information changes what it should do? That is where embracing serendipity in project planning becomes useful. Serendipity does not mean allowing a project to become unfocused. It means recognising that useful things can happen outside the original plan—and givin...