Thalasar Ventures

There are eight signs that are leading indicators for a project that can be expected not to reach its goals and targets in a timely manner. These eight signs are:

1.The project-team appears to be dealing with a very broad range of issues
2.The project team does not seem to be spending much time together
3.The team is spending a lot of time carrying out “interviews”
4.The team does not appear to be doing any meaningful analytics
5.The team has very limited interaction with you(and other sponsors )
6.Key stake-holders, who’s by-in will be required for the project to be a success, are not aware of the project
7.The project is not meeting agreed deadlines
8.It is difficult to pin the team down on any meaningful conclusions
This article will highlight how best to deal with the fourth of these signs, a project a team that does not appear to be doing any meaningful analytics.

Why is it a problem that a project-team does not appear to be carrying out any meaningful analytics? There are two main reasons why this should worry you. The first is that it is extremely difficult to conceive of a complex and important project that does not require any analytical activities to arrive at the required conclusions (if the answer was easy, it would not require a project). Therefore, if the team is not carrying out these types of activities, you and the other stakeholders are very unlikely to get the conclusions and recommendations you require. In the best case, you are likely to get a “data-dump” and a set of options to choose between.

The other reason why this is a worrying symptom is what you tend to see such teams doing instead of analytics. What I have often seen is that such teams seem to be working hard, but are spending their time carrying out a large number of interviews, collecting as much data and information as they can lay their hands on, and, often, doing a lot of travel. The consequences of these activities are that project costs are too high, and that it is very unlikely that the key project milestones will be met.

Why do project teams typically not carry out the required analytical tasks? Often this is caused by the team having an unclear picture of what is required from them, and therefore thinking that preparing a “data-dump” is the goal of the project. Often I see project-teams that are unable to carry out the required analytical tasks. While analytics is second nature to many people (consultants, etc), there are many capable and smart people who are not good at structuring and analyzing (new) problems. Finally, I also see the teams that are unwilling to go beyond data-collection as they are uncomfortable with the possible conclusions and are not willing to deliver unpopular recommendations.

What can you do to help the project team carry out the required analytics? The first step is to recheck the project plan to understand how much analytics are required. The next step is to sit down with the project team to understand why they are still in the data-collection phase. The next steps will depend on the answers given by the team. If they do not understand that they are required to do the analytics, you will need to ensure that the team understands the true goals of the project and how the required deliverables depend on analytics. The same steps will help to push the team that is unwilling to go beyond data-collection to come up with uncomfortable and/or unpopular conclusions. In this situation it will also help to explain to the team why they (as individuals) have been asked to carry out this project.

If the missing analytics is due to inability, then the team composition is wrong, and you will need to consider what you can do about this. One solution is to add analytical capacity to the team, but keep in mind the resulting team-development issues. The second solution will be to push the team to do their best, possibly combined with a workshop on specific analytical techniques (spreadsheets, statistics, etc). This is the best solution if keeping to deadlines is more important than optimal quality.