What’s your impact?

Pick a project you’ve worked on recently, something substantial.

  • What impact has it had on your customer(s)?
    • What about the impact on your customer’s customer(s)?
    • What was the intangible impact?
    • What was the financial impact?
    • What decisions were you able to make to maximize the intangible impact?
    • What decisions were you able to make to maximize the financial impact?
    • What impact was planned for, how well was it attained, or not?
    • What impact was unexpected?
    • How do customers feel?
  • Who set the expectations for the project?
    • Who approved the project, signed the contact, or cut the check to fund it?
    • Have you met this person?
    • How well do you know them?
    • When was the last time you discussed expectations with them?
    • Are the expectations framed in terms of customer impact?
    • Did the expectations come to you through someone else?
    • When expectations were being set, did you have the opportunity to inquire about purpose?
    • When’s the last time you helped eliminate an expectation that was too costly to pursue?
    • When’s the last time you helped strengthen an expectation to maximize the impact?
  • What did the project cost?
    • Did the impact justify the cost?
    • Would you approve the same investment if you were responsible for the project?
    • What would you change if you were setting the expectations?
    • Of what you would change, how much of this did you discuss with the person who set the expectations?
  • How often did you decide what you needed to do?
    • How often did someone else decide what you needed to do?
  • What was done that wasn’t necessary or had to be redone?
    • Who decided what to do initially?
    • Who did the initial work?
    • Who decided what to redo?
    • Who did the reworking?
    • Was it avoidable? How?
    • Would it have been worth trying to avoid?