Opinion
Focus on the Outcomes, the rest will follow
Published on 15 Apr, 2024 by James H.
At Green Custard, we have an outcomes-first philosophy. We critically analyse, understand and prioritise the desired customer outcomes from every project we undertake.
Whilst to some the outcome might appear to be a new IoT product, mobile application, or provisioning process for a connected device, we appreciate that these are just facets to achieve a wider set of business goals. These might consist of creating an effortless user experience, driving efficiencies, improving customer communication, cost optimisation, penetrating a new market, increasing market share, proving a concept or securing the next level of funding.
Projects we undertake typically have a multitude of stakeholder and organisational values, all dependent on successful project delivery. As part of our onboarding process, we work with clients to capture these at the start of our engagement to ensure they can be fed into the design and decision-making process.
Where organisations need help in capturing or articulating project value Green Custard can support this activity through workshops driven by our experts.
Project Management
Throughout the project lifecycle, we go beyond the traditional iron triangle (Budget, Schedule and Resources) to manage against the Project Management Star (Budget, Schedule, Resources, Quality, Risk and Scope).
Supplementary to this we measure against the identified project outcomes and value, capturing performance in metrics in these areas and sharing these with clients in regular meetings.
We encourage collaboration and regular communication with our clients and each client is assigned a Technical Project Lead and Customer Success Manager to ensure sufficient touchpoints are in place.
It is not uncommon for values and outcomes to evolve over time and this is always a consideration.
Optimum Results
There are often multiple technical solutions that could be implemented to satisfy the technical requirements of a project. Decisions are frequently needed throughout a project's lifecycle. It is only by truly capturing and understanding the project value to an organisation and stakeholders that the right decisions are made collaboratively and the correct technology selected.
Focusing on desired outcomes delivers the best results. It’s not just our team that believes this.
One of the most successful software solutions on the market in recent years has been Slack. Slack was bought by Salesforce in 2020 for $27.7billion [1]. However, Slack wasn’t built as a product to take to market to challenge the likes of Skype back in 2013, it was built purely as an internal tool to improve efficiency, knowledge sharing and communication amongst a project team. Slack even got its name from ‘Searchable Log of All Conversation and Knowledge’.[2]
The outcome and value of what Slack needed to be were deeply understood, as such the outcome achieved these focused objectives.
The software, the decisions made, and the final product were all created around the project teams and the business's desired outcomes. It was only after their primary project (a computer game) failed that they thought other teams and companies must have experienced the same inefficiencies as them and might be interested in their solution to these problems.
How right they were…
[1] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-55154326
[2] https://www.businessinsider.com/where-did-slack-get-its-name-2016-9?r=US&IR=T