Budget Season Foundations  #6:  Project Management Process of your Big Idea

Budget Season Foundations 5:  Project Management Process of your Big Idea

Congratulations!  Your big idea has been approved, and now it is time to get it into market.  But how do you do that in a matrixed organization littered with silos and personal agendas?  

Start with a project management process to ensure alignment across your organization, track your progress, and successfully execute with excellence.

Below is a high-level 3-step process for success:

1.     Request for an Executive Sponsor

An executive sponsor is a smart addition to your project management workstream for your big idea.   You will want to leverage this role within your team for executive level advice, accountability, and to flex their muscles if you have teams unwilling to drive the initiative.  Think of the sponsor as an unofficial mentor of sorts, but also as a key liaison for sharing updates on the program for the other members of the executive leadership team.

2.     Identify a project manager for the implementation of your big idea

This is a critical role for you and your big idea project. The job of this person as follows:

·       Project manage the details of the big idea (inclusive of meetings, meeting cadence, outcomes, and overall project calendar)

·       Drives accountability across all teams to ensure you stay on task and on-time with your deliverables

By having this person on your team, this allows you (the Project leader) to focus on a  the bigger picture of the big idea, problem solve as issues arise, and allows you to be the “chief communicator” to all relevant teams.

3.     Communicate!  Communicate! Communicate!

As the Project leader, you also need to be the chief communicator UP (to executives) and OUT (to the teams impacted by the change- outside the core team) to maintain visibility of the project.  As a project lead, you want to play offense and proactively communicate updates up and out on a recurring basis.

If you are leading a project, you NEVER want to be asked for an update on your project.  How do you successfully achieve this?   I recommend setting up an established communication plan, inclusive of weekly email updates to the relevant parties, and an in-person update with the executive team 1x per month.    I recommend getting buy-in from your Executive sponsor, then execute against your plan.

The last step in this process- establish a launch date for your big idea, communicate it to the organization, and hit your deadline with execution excellence!