1 Way Description Builds Interest for Your Project

The purpose of this blog post is to cover some examples of using Description for the background to explain your purpose and increase interest and engagement from your stakeholders.  

Description is under the LEAD domain, and Motive segment in the MPM model to describe the purpose for your project; and it is central to creating the Charter in Step 1, INITIATE and RATIONALIZE.

A diagram of a step pyramid

Description automatically generated

Description is under the LEAD domain, and Motive segment in the MPM model to describe the purpose for your project; and it is central to creating the Charter in Step 1, INITIATE and RATIONALIZE

Use the Description to Explain and Gain Interest

The description provides background to support the Project Purpose, which defines the reason or motivation for the project.

The project purpose is a one or two sentence summation of the motivation for the project.  To help the stakeholders understand the reason for the project and to pique their interest, the Description can provide the necessary background.

Description helps your stakeholders empathise with what has brought the organization to this point, why change is important, and why the project is necessary to facilitate that change.

Write the Description in an Objective tone

When writing the description stay objective, as if you were writing an accident report. Be detached and write from an uninvolved third-person perspective.

Leave emotion out of it.  Describe how you got to the current situation that motivated the project, but in brief terms.  A little history but not too much.

In contrast to using current state and target state is in this blog article, this approach for description is more about providing background that is almost like a story that lays enough foundation and facts to build to the current situation, so that a stakeholder can fully support the project. 

Vehicle Purchase Project Examples

The following examples for Description are from the vehicle purchase example that was first described in the INITIATE main blog post:

  • The blue-book information for this model indicates that over 300K miles you can expect to be getting into more major repairs
  • The current vehicle has difficulty running in the winter and my mechanic has suggested some expensive repairs that might resolve it but those would total over $3,000
  • My job now requires I travel to several different sites and that continues throughout the winter and those sites have neither indoor parking nor plugins so there is a risk my vehicle won’t start at some of those sites in the winter.

Potential flow of the Description

The following is a potential flow that can be used for the description, where it is essentially a background to the project:

  1. Precursor project or initiative that started the vision that this project builds upon

A picture containing person, soil

Description automatically generated

Build on the foundation from other related projects
  1. How the organization used the outcomes of the initial project to create something of value and how that value benefited the organization
  2. However, the value fell short of what was expected, and the business realized some additional needs
  3. These are the driving factors to the additional needs, including some of the high-level economics, or capabilities that could be realized by the business teams if these additional needs are met
  4. Some preliminary discussions occurred with the business teams recently and the results were positive and here are outcomes they are requesting, or here is some proof of that value they are suggesting
  5. A critical point has been reached and the business teams now support this project to achieve those needs for the betterment of the organization or for an increase in revenue for the organization.

The above flow is just a suggested approach to developing the Description as a background to the project to build interest and buy-in with the stakeholders.

Summary

The description provides background to support the project’s Purpose statement.

The project purpose is a one or two sentence summation of the motivation for the project, but it may not contain all of the background to help the stakeholders understand the reason for the project and to pique their interest.  The Description can provide the necessary background.

Lay out the description in such a way that it builds upon earlier initiatives or projects and how those outcomes have evolved to the current proposed project.  

This helps your stakeholders empathise with what has brought the organization to this point, why change is important, and why your project is necessary to facilitate that change.

Action Steps / Apply This Knowledge

  1. Review your project purpose and Description to determine if there is enough detail that stakeholders can relate to the motivation for your proposed project.
  1. If additional detail is needed, try using the suggested flow above to create a case for why the project is essentially building on projects or activities which have come before this project, that have the same vision or value proposition.
  2. Send your draft to a key stakeholder who is close to you to see if it helps them with the background to the project, and if so then add to the charter or make any updates they suggest.
  3. Prompt engineering guidance for AI GPTs such as chatGPT: “I’m a business leader launching a project whose outcome is X, using Y technology. What are some examples of brief two-sentence descriptions regarding the purpose that would engage the project stakeholders?”

Learn More to Do More

Business evolves through change initiatives otherwise known as projects. The key to managing these change initiatives so you have more time, and less stress is to use simple strategies and tools.

Check out the Learning Hub’s other Articles with Actionable Steps, organized with a busy leader in mind, by topic or main idea, and with some AI GPT (e.g. ChatGPT) prompt engineering suggestions under the Action steps: https://simplepmstrategies.com/learning-hub-index

LEAD – Description as Background 

© Simple PM Strategies 2024

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