Stage Gate Dramas

Each time I reach a stage gate, in the usual melee of near misaligned leadership, I find myself wishing I'd asked some questions earlier. I thought I'd share some of them - a kind of catharsis, if you like:

• Who makes the decisions around here?
• How are decisions made around here?
• Who is the design authority?
• Do you understand the commercial impact of this decision?
• Who is going to bear the cost of this change?
• How will you know when we're ready?
• How will we know when we're ready?
• What happens if it doesn't go to plan?
• And who will do that?
• Will you included that in the ... log?

Can you hear yourself asking any of those at just the right point? Maybe next time I start a new stage, I'll reflect on this post and ask them earlier!

UPDATE: On reflection, and in response to some comments along the lines of 'you should know better than to leave it this late', I realised that I do know better, and I do ask these questions much earlier! Perhaps the real answers don't reveal themselves until they are tested? (Particularly the first few questions).  Is there a more artful way of revealing the answers?  Yes there is - it's much less transactional...that will be the subject of another post...

Thanks to Denis in particular for prompting this update.  Sorry I didn't publish your comment, but I do value it!

-- Philip Greenwood

Comments

[Project Management]

I really believe in those things, If only we got options to ask them earlier before the whole project becomes a disaster, Next time it would be great to reflect all misconducts done, thanks for reminding me..really I appreciate this post very well stated.