Execution wins: escaping the cancer of endless projects

Execution wins: escaping the cancer of endless projects

Endless projects are a real cancer that should be treated immediately, in strategy execution and beyond. By definition, “endless” and “project” do not belong together. In addition to being unique, a project is defined by having a start and an end, the opposite of endless!

In practice, I repeatedly see projects failing to meet this simple requirement. Add a completely misguided understanding of agility and the strategy execution patient belongs in intensive care immediately. Statements like “we don’t do traditional waterfall; we’re agile and wander forwards” seem to offer a widespread justification for passively watching the cancers of strategy execution grow.

People start somehow without clearly defining expectations: the definition of done, when will we have succeeded, and what should be different or better afterwards? Because this is unclear, projects endlessly pursue undefined expectations, or moving targets. Expectations grow like tumours over time. As they grow, the time required to fulfil them logically grows too. But even when expectations and success criteria are clear, I view strategy execution projects lasting considerably longer than six months critically. For me, that is a reason to take a closer look. One indicator is a hockey-stick pattern in which a project claims no results can be available until its very end after more than a year, while supposedly control-obsessed management is asked to wait patiently.

I do not rule out strategic initiatives whose execution needs considerably longer than six months. But to avoid cancelling such projects only after two unsuccessful years, often after wasting enormous amounts of time, human resources and money and generating frustration, a simple, familiar method helps:

Slice the elephant. In other words, divide complex, lengthy projects into smaller, manageable parts that produce demonstrable results after three months in the best case and six months in the worst.

If slicing elephants sounds too martial in the age of sustainability, call it chunking instead. It sounds more modern and appealing and can be promoted more easily as the latest management fashion. If that fashion currently goes by OKR, Objectives and Key Results, then, used correctly, it is the pinnacle of modern strategy execution medicine for successfully treating the cancer of endless projects.