Ensuring that the team is aligned to the scope of the project

I'd recommend Daniel Gilbert's book "Stumbling On Happiness" to anybody.  It's an easy read, it's extensively researched, and I found his conclusions to be profoundly affecting.   On the topic of project leadership, there's one specific insight of his that I want to share:

"The fact is that human beings come into the world with a passion for control, they go out of the world the same way, and research suggests that if they lose their ability to control things at any point between their entrance and their exit they become unhappy, helpless, hopeless and depressed"

So what is the impact of writing a scope document and then handing it down to the project team?  You are removing control.  You might be lucky…they might look at the scope document and say, "Wow! I wish I'd written that!", but it's more likely that they will have a mixed, less enthusiastic, reaction to how they are going to spend the next year of their lives. 

It's tempting to say that you should allow the project team to challenge the scope, but that's really not enough.  Most organisations have a culture that supports (if not rewards) "keeping your head down" and accepting authority, so you actually need to encourage challenging the scope.  Furthermore, in the early days of a project the desire to get started, and deliver results quickly, will often lead the team to try to accomplish the scope challenge in a few hours.  This is called "premature closure", and it is probably the most expensive mental mistake that we humans make.

— Philip Greenwood

Tags: Project, Leadership, Black, Book, Scope