The Greater the Focus, the Brighter the Rainbow
“Without focused energy, organizational effectiveness fades.”
Picture by: Eric Rolph
Light and rain are the two primary ingredients for a rainbow to be made. However, if rain and light are all it takes to see a rainbow, why don’t we see them more often? Because your ability to see the rainbow depends on where you place yourself and when! The sun needs to be at your back. You need to be looking toward the rain, and you need to watch the sun's rays shine on it at a specific angle to see the rainbow.
Positioning is the key. That rule is the same in organizational effectiveness. How efficiently an organization is run, along with how well it achieves its goals, is a result of how well its work and projects are aligned with its purpose. Project management helps with this alignment - it keeps the organization’s purpose at the center of all work performed. Proper use of project management not only helps you successfully deliver new projects, but it can help adopt a culture where you learn to strategically select the projects that support your end goal.
Another cool thing about rainbows is the brighter the rainbow, the more focused the light is shining. Focus. Many organizations struggle with focus. The pressure they feel to show progress often results in too many, or even the wrong projects, being worked on simultaneously. They forget to ask the question, “How is this project feeding into my end goal?” Without focused sunlight, the rainbow starts to fade. The same thing happens to organizational effectiveness when energy isn’t focused - it fades.
Clearly, that isn’t the goal. Organizations are not initiating project after project to try to be less effective. They aren’t stretching their resources to accomplish innumerable tasks because they want to get further from their vision. They are trying to do great things - but they haven’t learned how to focus the energy to be as effective and efficient as possible.
Do you know the saying, “Slow and steady wins the race?” It is a saying we’ve come to ignore in modern business. With market turnover being at an all-time high, and market saturation occurring at an incredible rate, organizations (especially non-profits) feel the need to show regular progress to satiate investors/boards and keep customers interested. This need to drive results has the unfortunate consequence of stretching their organizational energy too far - diluting the results and outcomes of their endeavors. But, what if you were able to still deliver results while focusing your efforts? It can be done - and systematic project management can help.
So, how can you use project management to focus your energy and increase your organizational effectiveness? It will help by helping you to:
Understand resource capacity for change and projects
Through an established project management process you’ll understand what capacity (time and people) you have available to achieve the projects at hand. In this case, it isn’t just about having bodies to accomplish a task, it is about having the right people, with the right skills, to ensure the project is completed to the best of its ability and on time with as little waste as possible.
Use capacity to implement the most impactful changes
A highly effective project management team can identify and weed out projects that are diluting your focus because they are constantly evaluating projects to ensure they are feeding into your end goal. Project management teams partner to identify which project is the most important project to tackle right now, while ensuring it feeds into your future growth.
Focus and lead with a uniform vision
Strong project managers help to establish a strong, positive culture that empowers teams to make decisions because they lead with the organization’s vision. The project manager encourages the team to think about how their actions feed into the organizational vision so the team can better see how choices fit into the fold which helps them to understand how they are adding value.
Anticipate needed changes and address them proactively
Project managers work with departments to understand upcoming needs - they have to. If they help to identify what the most important project is right now they need to understand what is needed in the future to make sure there is time to complete those tasks. They not only do the focused work in the present, but they partner to strategize about what is needed in the future.
Increase capacity for change
Effective project management utilizes training and skill enhancement because a growing organization requires growing the skillset of its team members. The benefit of this is that, as projects progress and are completed, lessons are learned. The organization gains a better understanding of their ability. Through this newfound knowledge, our capacity for change and projects grows.
You can use project management to evaluate your positioning and make adjustments to increase your organizational effectiveness. You can use project management to help focus your efforts so you can see a clearer, brighter rainbow and have brighter, more successful outcomes.
If you want to take the next step in clarifying your vision, establishing an effective culture, evaluating your project portfolio, or even implementing a project management structure, we are happy to help. We can evaluate your current state and give you recommendations, or even become an extension of your organization as an extra set of hands to help you take the next step. Contact us for your free strategy session and learn how we can help you increase your impact within your community.
