Strategic Planning In Project Management

🎣 “They didn’t even cc me.” This was how Yumi, a senior marketing director, found out her billion-dollar product had been repositioned, without her input. The project she had been leading for 18 months was suddenly reporting into someone else. She didn’t mess up. She wasn’t underperforming. She just wasn’t "there". Not at the executive offsite. Not at the Friday “golf and growth” circle. Not at the CEO’s birthday dinner her male peer casually got invited to. She was busy being excellent. They were busy being bonded. 🍷 When she asked her boss about the change, he was surprised: “You’re usually aligned with the bigger picture, so we assumed it’d be fine.” In Workplace politic-ish: Yumi was predictable. Available. Yet not powerful enough to be consulted. 🔍 What actually happened here? Women are told to build relationships. Men build alliances. Women maintain connections. Men maintain relevance in power circles. It’s not about how many people like you. It’s about how many people speak your name when you’re not in the room. And in most companies, the real decisions - about budget, headcount, succession, are made off-the-clock and off-the-record. 📌 So, how do you stop getting edited out of influence? Try these: 1. 𝗧𝗿𝗮𝗰𝗸 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗹 𝗽𝗼𝘄𝗲𝗿 𝗺𝗮𝗽.    Not the org chart. The whisper network / shadow organistion.    Who gets invited to early product reviews?    Who influences without title?    Start mapping that!     2. 𝗔𝘂𝗱𝗶𝘁 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗻𝗮𝗺𝗲-𝗱𝗿𝗼𝗽 𝗰𝗼𝘂𝗻𝘁.    If your name hasn’t been mentioned by 3 different people in senior leadership this month, you are invisible to power, even if you’re a top performer.     3. 𝗥𝗲𝗱𝗲𝗳𝗶𝗻𝗲 𝗻𝗲𝘁𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗸𝗶𝗻𝗴.    Skip the webinars and female empowerment panels.    Start showing up where strategy happens: QBRs, investor briefings, offsite planning, cross-functional war rooms.     4. 𝗖𝗿𝗲𝗮𝘁𝗲 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗼𝘄𝗻 𝗯𝗮𝗰𝗸𝗰𝗵𝗮𝗻𝗻𝗲𝗹.    Schedule recurring 1:1s with lateral stakeholders, not to “catch up,” but to co-build. Influence travels faster across than up.     5. 𝗕𝗲 𝘄𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗲 𝗮𝗯𝘀𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲 𝗵𝘂𝗿𝘁𝘀.    If you vanished for 2 weeks and no one noticed, you’re not central enough to promote.     🧨 If any of this feels raw, it’s because it is. Brilliant women are being rewritten out of their own stories, not for lack of performance, but for lack of positioning. That’s why Uma, Grace and I created 👊 𝗙𝗿𝗼𝗺 𝗢𝘂𝘁𝘀𝗶𝗱𝗲𝗿 𝘁𝗼 𝗜𝗻𝘀𝗶𝗱𝗲𝗿: 𝗠𝗮𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗿 𝗪𝗼𝗿𝗸𝗽𝗹𝗮𝗰𝗲 𝗣𝗼𝗹𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗰𝘀👊 A course for women who are done watching strategic mediocrity rise while they wait for recognition. It’s not about becoming someone else. It’s about learning the rules that were never designed for us, and playing like you intend to win. 🔗 Get it if you’re ready, link in comment. Or wait until they “assume you’d be aligned,” too.

My S.C.O.P.E. Framework Your essential project management approach. 🌟 S - Specify Requirements • Define project requirements. • Document expectations. • Set a solid foundation. • Understand stakeholder needs. • Establish clear goals. C - Clarify Objectives • Set measurable objectives. • Align with project goals. • Use SMART criteria. • Ensure clarity and relevance. • Achieve project alignment. O - Outline Boundaries • Define project scope. • Specify inclusions and exclusions. • Manage expectations. • Prevent scope creep. • Establish clear limits. P - Plan for Changes • Prepare for changes. • Set up change processes. • Assess change requests. • Approve and implement changes. • Adapt to evolving needs. E - Evaluate Progress • Regularly review progress. • Measure against scope. • Ensure project stays on track. • Address deviations promptly. • Maintain project integrity. Download and save this framework. Use it to enhance your project planning and execution. 🌟 Thank you for reading!

🏗 How To Tackle Large, Complex Projects. With practical techniques to meet the desired outcome, without being disrupted or derailed along the way ↓ 🤔 99% of large projects don’t finish on budget and on time. 🤔 Projects rarely fail because of poor skills or execution. ✅ They fail because of optimism and insufficient planning. ✅ Also because of poor risk assessment, discovery, politics. 🎯 Best strategy: Think Slow (detailed planning) + Act Fast. ✅ Allocate 20–45% of total project effort for planning. ✅ Riskier and larger projects always require more planning. ✅ Think Right → Left: start from end goal, work backwards. ✅ For each goal, consider immediate previous steps/events. ✅ Set up milestones, prioritize key components for each. ✅ Consider stakeholders, users, risks, constraints, metrics. 🚫 Don’t underestimate unknown domain, blockers, deps. ✅ Compare vs. similar projects (reference class forecasting). ✅ Set up an “execution mode” to defer/minimize disruptions. 🚫 Nothing hurts productivity more than unplanned work. Over the last few years, I've been using the technique called “Event Storming” suggested by Matteo Cavucci to capture user’s experience moments through the lens of business needs. With it, we focus on the desired business outcome, and then use research insights to project events that users will be going through towards that outcome. On that journey, we identify key milestones and break user’s events into 2 main buckets: user’s success moments (which we want to dial up) and user’s pain points or frustrations (which we want to dial down). We then break out into groups of 3–4 people to separately prioritize these events and estimate their impact and effort on Effort vs. Value curves (https://lnkd.in/evrKJUEy). The next step is identifying key stakeholders to engage with, risks to consider (e.g. legacy systems, 3rd-party dependency etc.), resources and tooling. We reserve special timing to identify key blockers and constraints that endanger successful outcome or slow us down. If possible, we also set up UX metrics to track how successful we actually are in improving the current state of UX. When speaking to business, usually I speak about better discovery and scoping as the best way to mitigate risk. We can of course throw ideas into the market and run endless experiments. But not for critical projects that get a lot of visibility — e.g. replacing legacy systems or launching a new product. They require thorough planning to prevent big disasters and urgent rollbacks. If you’d like to learn more, I can only highly recommend "How Big Things Get Done" (https://lnkd.in/erhcBuxE), a wonderful book by Prof. Bent Flyvbjerg and Dan Gardner who have conducted a vast amount of research on when big projects fail and succeed. A wonderful book worth reading! Happy planning, everyone! 🎉🥳

Should you keep it simple and stick to one method of goal-setting...or is there benefit in adopting a hybrid approach? The answer can be determined by building your knowledge of goal setting methodologies and assessing your organizational size, maturity, complexity and change management capability. Many start ups and small businesses use simplified goal setting methods due to their size and limited resources. They might set SMART goals based on revenue, quality, customer acquisition, or product development, focusing on clear and attainable objectives. However, this approach doesn't always work when businesses get bigger! Larger, complex and diverse organizations generally use multiple goal setting methods to allow for a more nuanced and holistic approach to goal management. Some companies might set SMART goals for specific product development projects, OKRs (Objectives and Key Results) for strategic initiatives, and Balanced Scorecards for measuring overall performance, giving them a versatile approach. Others might use might use SMART goals for individual performance evaluations, Hoshin Kanri for strategic planning ( info on this approach in comments) and KPIs for tracking various operational metrics across different business units. Choosing the best methodologies for your organization requires involving employees, managers and other stakeholders in the decision-making process. You could also consider running a pilot program or trial period with different methodologies to assess their effectiveness in your specific organizational context. Remember...effective goal setting provides a clear roadmap for success, aligns efforts, motivates individuals and teams, and enables efficient monitoring and adaptation. The right methodology can drive performance and achievement. #goalsetting #goals #strategicplanning #strategicthinking #goalsettingtips Image source: SugarOKR.com

🗺️ 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐒𝐭𝐚𝐤𝐞𝐡𝐨𝐥𝐝𝐞𝐫 𝐈𝐧𝐟𝐥𝐮𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐌𝐚𝐩: 𝐘𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐁𝐥𝐮𝐞𝐩𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐭 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐀𝐫𝐜𝐡𝐢𝐭𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐚𝐥 𝐈𝐦𝐩𝐚𝐜𝐭 Most architects treat stakeholder management like a checklist: • “Get buy-in from these 5 people.” That’s not really how influence works. Influence flows through 𝐧𝐞𝐭𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐤𝐬. Understanding these networks multiplies your impact. 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐅𝐑𝐀𝐌𝐄𝐖𝐎𝐑𝐊 1️⃣ 𝐏𝐨𝐰𝐞𝐫 𝐆𝐫𝐢𝐝 (𝐖𝐡𝐨 𝐃𝐞𝐜𝐢𝐝𝐞𝐬?) • High Power / High Interest: Your champions, invest heavily here • High Power / Low Interest: Sleeping giants, wake them up with relevant value • Low Power / High Interest: Your advocates, turn them into evangelists • Low Power / Low Interest: Monitor, don’t over-invest 2️⃣ 𝐈𝐧𝐟𝐥𝐮𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐏𝐚𝐭𝐡𝐬 (𝐇𝐨𝐰 𝐃𝐞𝐜𝐢𝐬𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬 𝐑𝐞𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐲 𝐆𝐞𝐭 𝐌𝐚𝐝𝐞) Who does the CEO trust for technology advice? Which middle managers shape CFO’s budget decisions? Who influences the influencers...? 3️⃣ 𝐕𝐚𝐥𝐮𝐞 𝐃𝐫𝐢𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐬 (𝐖𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐌𝐨𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐬 𝐄𝐚𝐜𝐡 𝐒𝐭𝐚𝐤𝐞𝐡𝐨𝐥𝐝𝐞𝐫?) - Career advancement opportunities - Problem-solving and efficiency gains - Risk mitigation and control - Innovation and competitive advantage - Budget optimization and cost control 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐌𝐀𝐏𝐏𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐏𝐑𝐎𝐂𝐄𝐒𝐒 ✅ List stakeholders who impact your architectural decisions ✅ Plot them on the power/interest grid ✅ Tease out any influence paths between them ✅ Map each person’s primary value drivers ✅ Assemble targeted engagement strategies for each quadrant 𝐏𝐑𝐎 𝐓𝐈𝐏𝐒 → The real decision makers aren’t always on the org chart → Sometimes influencing the influencer is more effective than going direct → Different stakeholders need different messages about the same solution → Your influence strategy needs to evolve as people and priorities change Don't think of this as just politics. It’s 𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐠𝐢𝐜 𝐫𝐞𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬𝐡𝐢𝐩 𝐛𝐮𝐢𝐥𝐝𝐢𝐧𝐠. The best architects don’t only design systems. 𝐓𝐡𝐞𝐲 𝐛𝐮𝐢𝐥𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐫𝐞𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬𝐡𝐢𝐩𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐞𝐧𝐬𝐮𝐫𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐬𝐞 𝐬𝐲𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐦𝐬 𝐠𝐞𝐭 𝐟𝐮𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐝, 𝐛𝐮𝐢𝐥𝐭, 𝐝𝐞𝐩𝐥𝐨𝐲𝐞𝐝 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐚𝐝𝐨𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐝. 💡 Save this framework. Your next major architecture initiative will thank you. 👇 What’s been your experience with stakeholder influence? Any surprises about who really drives decisions? --- ➕ 𝐅𝐨𝐥𝐥𝐨𝐰 Kevin Donovan 🔔 ♻️ 𝐑𝐞𝐩𝐨𝐬𝐭 | 💬 𝐂𝐨𝐦𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭 | 👍 𝐋𝐢𝐤𝐞 🚀 𝐉𝐨𝐢𝐧 𝐀𝐫𝐜𝐡𝐢𝐭𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐬’ 𝐇𝐮𝐛 – Join our newsletter and connect with a community that understands. Enhance your skills, meet peers, and advance your career! 𝐒𝐮𝐛𝐬𝐜𝐫𝐢𝐛𝐞 👉 https://lnkd.in/dgmQqfu2

In large deals, the real competition is rarely another product. It is inertia. The most effective large deals are often shaped early. When the business user begins exploring a problem, and the right conversations start happening at that stage, the deal gradually evolves into a sole-sourced decision rather than a late-stage RFP comparison. Because once a deal reaches a formal RFP stage, many vendors appear to be at the finish line. In reality, the direction of the deal was usually influenced much earlier. Many deals look healthy for months. The champion is engaged. The demos land well. The value is understood. And then, close to the finish line, the deal slows down… or quietly becomes “No Decision.” More often than not, the issue is not price or product. The deal simply never travelled far enough inside the organisation. Large buying decisions are rarely made by one person. They are shaped by a group. The business user evaluates usability. IT looks at integration. Security looks at risk. Finance looks at cost. Leadership looks at long-term impact. Each of them is solving a different problem. If the conversation is only happening with one or two people, the deal remains fragile. This is where relationship mapping becomes one of the most important disciplines in selling large deals. Not just knowing your champion, but understanding the ecosystem around the deal. Who influences whom? Who signs. Who can block progress quietly? Who needs confidence before the decision moves forward? Building that map takes time. It means asking better questions. • Who else will review this internally?  • Who will be responsible for implementation?  • Who owns the budget?  • Who needs to see this before we move ahead? As more people across the organisation understand the value, the deal becomes stronger. It stops being one person’s initiative and starts becoming a shared decision. And shared decisions move forward with far less resistance. The best sellers know that closing large deals is not just about presenting a solution well. It is about shaping the deal early and building alignment across people, priorities, and perspectives. #LargeDeals #Enterprises #SST

SMART goals are dumb. Definitely outdated. They were literally coined in 1981 by John T. Doran in the Management Review. That's 43 years old. Oh and psst - your team hates setting them. Why? Because the acronym is fundamentally flawed: Specific: Limits creativity and hampers your ability to adapt when new information emerges. 🤔 Measurable: Sure, you know when you've achieved it, but does it drive meaningful, impactful outcomes? 📉 Attainable: Keeps you comfortably within your comfort zone—hardly a place for growth. 🛋️ Realistic: Another word for attainable. It encourages small thinking and boxes you in. 🚫 Time-bound: While deadlines are important, meaningful goals need built-in milestones that keep motivation high and the dopamine flowing. 🎯 In short, SMART goals keep us stuck in mediocrity, lacking purpose and innovation. So, what’s the alternative? Enter the PIC Framework: Purpose-Driven: Every goal should connect to a deeper mission or value. This alignment not only motivates but also gives each goal a clear "why." 🎯 Impactful: Goals should aim for outcomes that matter—shifting the focus from what's easily measurable to what's truly transformative. 🌍 Challenging: If your goals don’t make you a little uncomfortable, you’re not aiming high enough. Embrace the discomfort as a sign of growth and ambition.💪 Want to innovate your goal setting? Here's how you can bring PIC to your organization: Start with Purpose ➡ Align goals with the organization's mission. 🌟 Define Impact ➡ Focus on meaningful outcomes that drive the business forward over easy measurements (especially, for the sake of a great dashboard). 📊 Set Challenging Objectives ➡ Encourage ambition and innovation - yep, even if it scares you. 🚀 Embed Milestones ➡ Keep motivation high with regular wins - not just a potential bonus at the end of the year. 🏆 Foster Reflection ➡ Regularly review and adapt goals as needed. 🔄 (In other words, setting a goal in January and refusing to change it because you set it, even though you have new information, is well...ridiculous.) By moving from SMART to PIC, you create a culture of purpose, impact, and challenge. And who knows - maybe people will finally start to buy-in to the goal setting process and actually like it! 🌟 #Leadership #Innovation #GoalSetting #BusinessGrowth #PurposeDriven

The hard truth about ambition and reaching the pinnacle of your career? Access always matters more than equality. Every boardroom, term sheet, and partnership runs on a single invisible currency: influence. Algorithms may rank the noise, but it’s still human trust that seals or sinks the deal. Here's what still matters: → Who you know → How you make them feel → How much they trust you Learning to cultivate influence has protected my sanity—and my career—more than any pitch deck tweak ever could. I've lost count of the times bias tried to write my story for me—whether it was my gender, my faith, my skin color, or my socioeconomic background. Outrage felt righteous, but useless. So I started playing a longer game: → 𝗠𝗮𝗽 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗽𝗼𝘄𝗲𝗿 𝗰𝗵𝗮𝗶𝗻. Before any meeting, I identify not just the decision-maker but the quiet consiglières who shape their view. → 𝗜𝗻𝘃𝗲𝘀𝘁 𝗶𝗻 𝗽𝗲𝗼𝗽𝗹𝗲 𝗯𝗲𝗳𝗼𝗿𝗲 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗮𝗻𝘁𝗶𝗰𝗶𝗽𝗮𝘁𝗲 𝗮 𝗻𝗲𝗲𝗱. Cultivating genuine curiosity in someone else is both fun and helps things like a warm intro land 5× better. → "𝗞𝗲𝗲𝗽 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗮𝗿𝗺𝘀 𝗹𝗼𝗻𝗴" There's an Urdu phrase about this—the folks whose influence is vast because they know how to be in many rooms. Social capital compounds when you're the bridge across different networks. Doors that once felt like Mission Impossible now open with a single knock, letting people see me on my own terms; some call that contrived, but it’s simply strategic—by building the conditions I need, I sidestep conflict and show up as who I am, not who others assume I should be. Takeaway: Influence isn't a dirty word. Think of it as compound interest on credibility and authenticity.

Whiteboard Wednesday is back after a month of highlighting a customer story every day. Today I want to talk about goal setting and a counterintuitive technique that's helped us achieve outcomes here at FERMÀT that we once thought was impossible. Traditional goal setting fails because it relies on historical trends. Most teams look at their improvement rate from last quarter, then aim to do slightly better—essentially saying "if I was here before and I'm here now, I'll try to get a bit further next quarter." Instead, I challenge my team with this powerful alternative approach: 1. Define the maximum possible Ban historical data from goal-setting discussions. Instead, ask: "What's the theoretical ceiling for this metric given the physics and truths of our business?" 2. Quantify the reality gap Once you've established your theoretical ceiling, examine your current position. This gap reveals exactly what must change to achieve breakthrough results. 3. Challenge core assumptions This forces a crucial conversation: "What's the difference between our business fundamentals and historical outcomes that makes this goal seem unattainable?" When you work backward from theoretical maximums rather than forward from historical trends, you discover entirely new actions required to achieve extraordinary results. This approach works across any business type—whether you're increasing product development velocity or scaling creative testing. The principle remains: determine what's maximally possible given your business fundamentals, then work backward to identify the necessary transformations. What assumptions about your business trajectory could you challenge using this method?

We tell our sales reps to be gritty, to work smarter, not harder, to smash their quota but don't always do the best job pairing those inspirational calls to action with tools and techniques that allow them to do the things we ask. For years, I’ve loved the GROW Goal Setting Model. It is a great model, but I found myself tweaking it to reflect the things I think are fascinating and that actually work for revenue teams. 🧠 Ideas like: - Neuroplasticity - Harms of moonshot thinking - Value of gratitude and meditation - The frustration reps feel when they work tirelessly and still miss quota. That’s why I developed the PATH. 👉 Steal this framework to help your team not only set goals but achieve them. The PATH framework is a four-step process that helps you and your team set actionable goals, anticipate challenges, and ensure every step aligns with your aspirations. 1. Plan: Setting a Focused Goal Everything starts with a solid foundation. The first step is setting a focused goal. SMART goals—Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound—work well here. This ensures you’re working toward a well-defined target, making it easier to stay focused and track progress. 2. Anticipate: Backcasting Once your goal is in place, it’s time to imagine your desired future state. I love writing goals as if they've already happened and writing out the details of what it took me to get there. This process ensures that you have realistic micro-actions that you can be accountable to on the PATH to achieving your goal. 3. Test: Pre-Mortem Next, you stress-test your plan with a pre-mortem (inspo credit: Annie Duke, Thinking in Bets) This exercise allows you to identify risks before they arise, so you can adjust your plan and stay on track. It also encourages you to uncover opportunities to leapfrog your progress by brainstorming creative solutions. 4. Harmonize: Alignment to Aspirations The final step ensures that your micro-actions align with your larger aspirations. It's a final sense check to ensure you've set a goal you care enough about that you'll put in the hard work required to achieve it. That work will be supported by a clear PATH to success. The PATH framework ensures you don’t just set goals—you achieve them. 💸 Want me to guide your sales or leadership team through this process as part of your year-end planning or SKO? Drop "PATH" in the comments to learn more.