The work before the work:
Why organisations start projects too soon.
Organisations are designed to turn problems into activity. An infrastructure constraint becomes a project. A regulatory concern becomes a program. An inefficient process becomes a technology implementation. There is nothing inherently wrong with this. Organisations need mechanisms for getting things done. But there is a danger in moving too quickly from “we have a problem” to “we have a project.”
“Uncertainty does not disappear when a project starts. It simply moves inside the project.”
The moment a project is established, momentum builds. People are assigned, budgets appear, governance is created, scope begins to solidify and progress starts being reported. The organisation has moved from understanding the problem to delivering something. Sometimes, that happens before the most important questions have been resolved.
Starting creates commitment
We tend to think of commitment as the point at which a board approves funding or signs a contract. In practice, it begins much earlier. Once capable people have spent months developing a particular response, it becomes harder to reconsider whether that response was right in the first place. “We need to address this problem” becomes “we need to deliver this project”. A possible solution becomes the scope. An assumption becomes a constraint. The uncertainty hasn’t disappeared. It has simply moved inside the project.
That is when delivery teams can inherit questions the organisation should have resolved earlier. Different executives may have different views about success. Stakeholders may disagree about the underlying problem. A supposedly fixed constraint may turn out not to be fixed.
The response is often more work: another study, revised scope, further consultation or another executive discussion. It can look like a delivery problem when the underlying issue is a lack of organisational clarity.
Activity can hide a lack of clarity
Activity is reassuring. A steering committee has been established. The consultant has commenced. The project plan is green. A draft is due next month. These are visible signs of progress, but they do not necessarily tell leaders whether the organisation has become clearer about the outcome it needs to achieve.
Eventually, unresolved ambiguity tends to surface: when an executive challenges the scope, costs increase, priorities change, or a board asks what the investment will actually achieve. By then, changing direction is considerably more expensive.
Four questions before something becomes a project
There is useful work leaders can do before establishing the delivery machinery.
Start without naming the solution. What is happening now that should be different, and how would the organisation know the situation had materially improved?
“Replace the system” is a solution. “Reduce the time and error involved in producing regulatory reports” is an outcome.
The distinction leaves room to consider different ways of achieving the result.
Not every unresolved issue is ready for an investment decision.
The next decision might be whether the problem warrants intervention, which pathway deserves further investigation, or whether the organisation is genuinely ready to select and fund a solution.
Being explicit about the decision prevents exploratory work from quietly becoming a commitment.
Some constraints are real: legislation, safety requirements, service obligations, physical limits and contractual commitments. Others are assumptions or preferences that have gradually come to be treated as facts.
Before building a project around them, distinguish genuine constraints from inherited decisions. False constraints can narrow the available options before they have been properly considered.
Complex work often crosses strategy, operations, finance, regulation, technical disciplines and other organisational boundaries.
A project can have an excellent project manager and still lack clear ownership of the organisational outcome. Someone senior needs to remain accountable for the result, not merely for completing the project.
This is not an argument for slower organisations
Organisations already spend plenty of time discussing important work. The answer is not another layer of process. The choice is between resolving important questions when they are relatively cheap to resolve and resolving them after people, money and organisational reputation have become attached to an answer. Good upfront thinking should accelerate worthwhile work. It should also stop some work. Not every problem needs a project, and not every project needs to proceed in its original form.
A test for leaders
Choose one significant project currently underway in your organisation and mentally remove its name, existing scope and preferred solution. Could your executive team still agree on the outcome you are trying to change, the decision you are making, the constraints that are genuinely fixed and who owns the result?
If the answers are clear and consistent, the project has a strong foundation. If they differ substantially, the project may not need another layer of process. The organisation may need to resolve some of the work that should have happened before the work began. That is not lost time. It is how organisations avoid spending considerably more time solving the wrong problem well.
Need clarity before moving forward?
For large infrastructure investments, getting clear on the problem, the outcomes sought and the need for intervention is an important part of Victoria’s Investment Management Standard process.
Simon is an Investment Management Standard facilitator certified by the Victorian Department of Treasury and Finance and facilitates these workshops for major infrastructure projects.
If you need independent support to clarify the need for an investment, define the outcomes you are seeking, or work through these questions with the people involved, get in touch with Grantus.
Get clearer before committing to the solution.
Simon Coutts
Simon is the Director and Founder of Grantus, a trusted advisor in strategic funding, complex problem solving, and stakeholder management, driving growth and public benefit for organisations dedicated to making a lasting impact. Book a ‘Borrow My Brain‘ session with Simon.
No Comments