The People, Process, & Progress Podcast - Challenge Assumptions | FF62

Episode Date: May 6, 2022

Sharing helpful guidance from the book Managing Projects Large and Small on the value of challenging assumptions made early in a project.

Welcome to Foundations Friday 62, Challenge Assumptions. This is inspired both from, you know, a lot of folks have heard and my experience and others that you've probably heard either on this podcast or others or just in life about challenging the assumptions that are made, but in particular, project management. And in here, I have a book, Harvard Business Essentials, and it's from there rather, and it's called Managing Projects Large and Small. And it has a really great summary on – and I'll let you read it. So if you get that book, it's on page 96, Challenge Assumptions. But the great principle here is we get all these facts and figures and the dates and the cost, and we have to do this much or that much percentage. And the thought and the guidance here and what I'm sharing that I thought was so good here is, you know, where do these figures come from? Now, some of this we can, you know,

mathematically calculate or we know from previous lessons learned. But how so early or before we start a project, do we really know these things? I think as part of the process and something I've done recently in the past, and I'm sure a lot of you have, is when we do like a level of effort estimate or cost estimates or those kind of things and whatever methodology you use is really digging into to the best that you can, kind of a more accurate assumption. So not just numbers that are thrown out or a percent, you know, performance increase or reduction in time doing this or that if you're doing a process improvement project. But when you get into that level of effort, talking to the subject matter experts, really looking back at how much did this thing cost that's very similar to this other project effort

or program that we're managing now. And if you hear things as a program manager or project manager or project associate or associate PM or whatever, challenge them if they sound off and not maybe in a confrontational way, but a way that's educational both for you and for the person who's putting the numbers out there. And you know what? Maybe it'll prompt a, oh, you know what? You're right. We didn't consider this or that, or that was arbitrary and we just threw it out there because

we haven't done it before. But maybe there's a way we can get a better estimate. But I think it's always good to respectfully challenge assumptions and ask questions. And, you know, some folks aren't going to be comfortable with you asking questions, but that's part of, you know, maybe their professional maturity. And you certainly have to consider how you ask those questions, but challenge assumptions, challenge yourself. Thanks for challenging yourself to come to this podcast, the People Process Progress podcast. Go to peopleprocessprogress.com for more episodes, write-ups.

I expand a bit in a lot of the write-ups for each episode there. There's a store. If you know or want to be a guest on the show, reach out to me for sure. Thank you so much for all you're doing out there. Stay safe, wash those hands, and Godspeed.