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?