She Writes Change

Customer journey mapping, be it internal of external customers, is more than a fully CX exercise. It's an excellent project planning tool that spots problems before a line of code is even written. 𝐇𝐨𝐰 𝐢𝐭 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐤𝐬 Map out every touchpoint your customer will have with what you're building. Do this upfront, before you've committed budget. This will let you see and structure processes and features early on, making sure you also spot issues that could blindside you after l

The team, the sponsors, and the stakeholder are all there. Scope, goals, and timelines are aligned. But the most critical voice is missing: the end-user.  Not the internal client. Not the budget holder. But the person who really matters, whose life or work we are supposed to be improving. When the customer isn't represented from day one, we risk delivering a project that's on time, on budget, BUT isn't fit for purpose.

Post-Mortems or Lessons Learned are useful if run properly, of course, BUT they won't save your project. We've normalised learning lessons after delivery, after the damage, after the failure. But what if there was a better way?

The most expensive thing in your project isn't what you think. It's a the endless one-hour meetings with either the wrong people, or the wrong agenda. And I've seen this everywhere, hell, I've definitely been guilty of it myself in the past!

Stop asking for "Lessons Learned". Start asking for "Lessons Applied". How many times have you sat in a post project meeting review, listing out all the "Lessons Learned", only see them filed away in a document that's never read again?

You've integrated all your project dashboards into one view. So why is your Steering Committee still confused? I've seen organisations invest heavily in Project software and unified dashboards, integrating every project management tool, all to create the perfect "single pane of glass" view. Then they sit in Steering meetings where executives still ask the same questions: "Are we on track?". "What does this really mean for the business?". "Should we be worried?".

A project might tick every box during delivery, on time, on budget, stakeholders happy, but fail to deliver the promised business value months later.  Without post-implementation tracking, you're essentially flying blind.

Launching a new digital product across 12,000 retail locations taught me that scale isn't about size, it's about psychology. You can't just double the resources for double the locations. The real challenges are human. Here's what I learnt about scale:

So when I talk about the business risk of siloed delivery, I'm talking from real experience. And I've seen it in so many other places too. Disconnected projects undermine what could be powerful business outcomes, it puts pressure on people already overloaded with change.

It's easy to hope it "will sort itself out", but in projects, small cracks compound fast. That minor delivery hiccup gets pushed to "next week's" agenda again and again, until it becomes a board level crisis. 

𝐅𝐫𝐚𝐦𝐞 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐀𝐈 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐠: It’s a business tool, not a side experiment so apply the same strategic intent, and ROI focus you would to any core investment

The reality is that the rigid application of either Agile or Waterfall rarely fits the messy reality of complex delivery. 

Successful projects are more than just on-budget and on-time, real value comes from benefits realisation. You can deliver the best project in the world, but if it doesn't deliver the benefits, then it's all been for nothing. Make sure there are measurable benefits at the start of the project, review them regularly and host post-project reviews with Business Owners.

The difference between strategy and success is delivery. Without it, every brilliant idea remains just that - an idea. Brilliant ideas don't deliver outcomes, unfortunately. It's project management that ultimately makes those ideas a reality.