In a recent Twitter exchange with one of my friends (@eileenb), we were discussing productivity and planning. We covered things like the “5 Ps” (perfect planning prevents poor performance). As you might imagine, with a project manager’s hat on, things like the 5 Ps are stocks-in-trade for delivering the results clients need. My standpoint was slightly different though.

I suggested “3 new Ps” – Productivity, Priority and Purpose.

My thinking was that planning is all very well, but one of the first questions I tend to ask clients when I am starting a project with them, or indeed picking up a struggling project, is “why are you doing this project in the first place?” – the purpose.

No point perfectly planning exactly the wrong thing…

Purpose
This is why purpose is so important. From a pure business point of view, effort expended going down dead ends is pure waste, on the bottom line. An extra £ of cost hurts more than a missing £ of sales after all. What is perhaps worse is the effect that such wasted work can have on morale and motivation, potentially driving a wedge between managers and their teams. If you can’t share a clear sense of purpose for a project, stop it until you (and the others involved) can explain it. Really.

Productivity
So, Productivity. Let’s assume that productivity as our aim or ambition is the first key; since doing more, in less time with fewer resources lets us make money, save money, save time, and as a result generally do the fun and important things in life. The improvements in productivity should support our stated purpose. We should be able to measure or quantify the productivity benefits.

Priority
Priority is the other difficult thing to get right; usually because priority is a fluid, living thing compared to written plans. If it was easy, we’d never struggle to set priorities, share them, and all work in concert. I’ve heard that this is actually not always the case…

Sometimes, clients bring us in to help do post mortems, on both successful and failed projects – root cause analyses of why good and bad results happened. More often than not, the difference between the two types boil down to two things; communication, and priority.

I could then argue that priority is just a form of communication; so, there you go, everything in life boils down to communication – including planning, prioritisation, productivity and clarity of purpose.

So, for your current or next project, how clear are:

• Purpose
• Priorities
• Productivity goals?

And how do you know that other people genuinely share your understanding?

Are they written down, have you asked people?

Worth a check.