Big goals, small steps

Nobel prize winner Desmond Tutu would have been a great project manager.

He was right: big goals are daunting. Where do you even start?

My client Mark was wondering the same, and today I’ll show you how we solved that.

This is part 4 of our mini-series on the first principles of project management.

So far we’ve covered:

1. Why

2. Who

3. What

Today, we’re translating our project into deliverables and defining our scope.

Let’s go!

Meet Mark.

Mark reached out a few months ago because he was in deep trouble.

And by deep trouble, I mean the “If this doesn’t get sorted in a few weeks, the company goes bankrupt” kind of trouble.

Mark is the CFO of a software company and is in charge of a restructuring project.

The company made a few bets that didn’t pay off in 2022. Combined with the economic headwind, things were looking grim.

The board decided that it was time to cut costs to ride out the storm. It was urgent too: they only had cash for a few more months.

And that’s where Mark came in.

The board gave him a solid mandate. The project had a clear why, and a goal plus a measurable definition of success: cut monthly expenses by 30% before February 1st.

Mark assembled a team of internal A-players and added some external experts to cover up for blind spots (including yours truly).

The next step was to define the project scope and break the big goal down into small enough steps so that the team could start working on it.

Here’s how we did it:

Big goals, small steps

To the board’s credit, they told Mark what needed to be done, and why. They didn’t tell him how to do it - that was up to Mark and the team.

This is why the first thing we did was to translate the benefits & success criteria into a clear project scope.

Project scope is the work you’re doing to deliver the benefits.

Additionally, you define what is not in scope. This sounds obvious, but defining what you’re NOT going to do is often just as important as defining what you’ll do.

Setting the project scope

We gathered the core project team and started by brainstorming all the possible things we could do to reduce costs.

This became a wild and long list, with items ranging from buying cheaper coffee to killing entire business lines.

Next up, we removed the off-limits things as set by the steering committee.

This meant not touching one specific innovation project, or the procurement spend with a few long-term partners to secure future relationships.

Next up, we needed to narrow our focus. There’s no point in trying 30 different things. Instead, pick a few and do them well. So which ones do you pick?

Here's what the whiteboard looked like:

Ideas in the top right corner are very effective at cutting costs, but also take a lot of effort or have big negative consequences. Things like cutting an entire business line sit here.

In the bottom left corner sit ideas that have a low potential to reduce costs, but also take little effort. These things are generally not worth doing.

We focus on the bottom right corner: easy, lower impact, and big savings.

This included things like cutting operational costs in certain areas by 20%, decreasing overhead by 15%, pausing some innovation projects, and a hiring freeze.

With our scope defined, it was time for the next step:

Defining deliverables

For each of the initiatives that were in scope, we had to get practical. Pausing innovation project X sounds easy, but what does that actually mean?

We had to define deliverables: the tangible things we’ll deliver to reach our goal.

In this case, this included things like a communication plan, documenting the work done, a restart plan, re-assigning the team, et cetera.

We now had decided how we would cut the costs by 30%, and we had broken that down into actual deliverables.

We went from:

1. “Cut expenses by 30% by February 1st” to

2. “Pause innovation project X” to

3. “Reassign team members”

Still not an easy feat, but a lot less daunting!

Work breakdown structure

For some projects, you might need to go 5 levels deeper.

The name “work breakdown structure” explains it all: it’s a tool that visually helps you to break down work into smaller and smaller increments.

How deep do you need to go? This is defined by a few key factors, such as:

• Project complexity

• Planning requirements

• Project risk management

• Organizational standards

• Stakeholder expectations

For this project, “reassign team members” was enough detail.

Your mileage may vary.

Connecting the dots

When you start a project, you have a big goal. But staring up a mountain is daunting if you don’t know where the trail starts.

You need to figure out a path and climb to your goal step by step.

In summary:

• Your scope is what you’ll do to reach your goal

• The deliverables are the tangible pieces that you will create

• A work breakdown structure is a tool to help you break deliverables down into manageable tasks

As always, I’ll leave you with a challenge.

Put yourself in Mark’s shoes, and look at a project you’re currently working on. How have you broken down the big goal of your project into small steps?

Can you trace the breadcrumb trail back up, and connect what one team member is working on today with the overall goal of the project?

Odds are that for some of the current work on hand you’ll realize that it’s not critical to the goal. In that case, you have work to do!

Up next: when?

With our big goal broken down into small steps, the next thing to do is plan the work in time.

After why, who, and what, when becomes the next fundamental question to answer.

We’ll dig into that next week!

Cheers,

Jasper

PS: If you like the format of client stories like these, reply with “story”. If enough fellow readers prefer this, I’ll try to tie more of our first principles to client cases from the past.

PPS: If you’re in a tight spot like Mark, let’s scribble on a whiteboard together and get you unstuck! I’m opening a few calendar slots for client advisory work. Learn more about working 1:1 with me here.