Doing the Do

To finish off this trifecta I'll share my thoughts on the third piece of feedback I provided to Project Managers of our Enterprise PMO after analysing their Post Implementation Reviews.

Along with Blind Optimism and not identifying True Learnings, I provided feedback related to a Focus on Doing.

This is based around the Deming Cycle of continuous improvement where you cycle through the stages of Plan, Do, Study, Act (AKA: PDSA, PDCA).

What we noticed was PMs were given a small amount of lead time for Projects ("You have funding, now start delivering.") and quickly moved through Planning to actually Doing.

Unfortunately instead of taking time to Study the outcomes and performance of the Project and then take steps to Act on identified improvements, The PM was usually quickly given another assignment ("bench time costs money" chargeback mentality) and asked to deliver in line with some phantom deadline arrived at to fit in some schedule somewhere.

So a majority of time was spent in doing with very little planning and virtually no study and action.