Tweet

Course Correction

Written by: Luciano Lombardi

Article Overview: It takes a huge amount of time and energy to get a team off the ground with a project or strategy implementation. Its definitely a great undertaking to get to the point of implementation. Knowing how much time this takes, do you consider any necessary course corrections along the way?

Course Correction

How quickly are you able to change course once you get off the ground?

It takes a huge amount of time and energy to get a team off the ground with a project or strategy implementation. Its definitely a great undertaking to get to the point of implementation. Knowing how much time this takes, do you consider any necessary course corrections along the way?

Here's the issue: since it takes a huge amount of time to get a project off the ground, by the time you get past the point of implementation, enough time has gone by that the parameters you set up at the beginning to get to your destination have changed. The analogy of flight demonstrates this. On a planned flight path, pilots make several adjustments along the way to correct the flight path given the changing conditions in the air. Changing conditions can be anything from a small change in wind speed to a major storm that requires the pilot to fly at a higher altitude to avoid the turbulence.

Embedding frequent reassessments into your project implementation to account for change in conditions can be one of the most important things you do to ensure you get to your intended goal. After all, the time spent on getting a project off the ground would be time poorly spent if course changes were not anticipated and implemented at key stages of operation.

How do you allow for reassessment and course adjustment?

Here are some tips:

• Before implementing, assess if your original plan is still relevant. What are the instruments you are using to assess relevancy? These may be market analysis, trends, significant changes in the environment and continual relevancy to market needs.
• After implementation, plan for frequent assessments to see how the project is going. This is like taking a temperature to gauge whether conditions have significantly changed. This can be simply polling your front line people for an evaluation to doing a significant assessment of customers or clients to polling practices to gauge effectiveness.
• Maintain enough of a fluid atmosphere that will allow for the need of an immediate course change should the situation warrant it. Getting your team used to dealing with change can go a long way to being able to make quick course corrections. Many projects have gone down in flames because the team was averse to changing quickly.
• Foster consistent documentation and constant discussion. A project should never go without review or discussion for more than 6 months - preferably 3 months. Document everything so that there is a way of recalling past issues and discussions. Its not surprising that great ideas and great processes are forgotten quickly. Documentation gives you a reference point.

Creating an assessment culture in your work environment will go a long way to ensuring that you stay on course to where you are headed. These tips can add to a successful project run and a successful project change.

Related Articles
  Nice or Honest?
  A Prescription From The PR Doctor For A Healthy Pursuit of Media Corrections
  Every Media Mention Counts
  “Zig Zag” Your Way to Success!
  Optimizing Your Word Pronunciation Text to Voice Utility Within One Minute

Article Tags: altitude, amount of time, analogy, analysis trends, course changes, flight path, implementation plan, important things, key stages, li li, necessary course, project implementation, reassessment, reassessments, relevancy, strategy implementation, taking a temperature, turbulence, undertaking, wind speed



Related Forum Posts


Share this article with your friends. Fund someone's dream.

Leave a comment below or share on the left and you'll help support entrepreneurs in Africa through our partnership with Kiva. Over $50,000 raised and counting - Please keep sharing! Learn more.

Tweet

Newsletter

Get advice & tips from famous business
owners, new articles by entrepreneur
experts, my latest website updates, &
special sneak peaks at what's to come!

Name:
Email:

Popular Articles

Gas bills go up by 18% can we take any more

Think Time

Are You An Accidental Consultant?

Suggestions

Email us your ideas on how to make our
website more valuable! Thank you Sharon
from Toronto Salsa Lessons / Classes for
your suggestions to make the newsletter
look like the website and profile younger
entrepreneurs like Jennifer Lopez.