Wishes For The New Project

When embarking on a new innovative idea make sure that you first record your team’s wishes for the new project. What is it that they wish will happen.

It’s also good to consider the opposite of this too as in what they wish won’t happen. Another way to put this would be to list your team’s hopes and fears for the project.

Record Them And Share The List

In the corporate world, this is often recorded using the more formal terminology of project aspirations and project obstacles.

Whatever terminology you choose make sure that you list these plus and minus wishes for the new project on a flip chart or project wiki. This way you can continue to check on them as the project progresses and see how close you are to meeting / avoiding them.

Revisit Often

Don’t simply make this a once a project activity. Have the list as an active document that you revisit and update on a regular basis. Is there anything that you can add or remove or check off as you revisit the list?

Look in detail at the project fears or obstacles that have been listed. Try and remove or eliminate any fears/obstacles instantly as soon as they are raised.

Having a defined list of what you want to go right and what you want to avoid there for everyone to see and share gives the team more control as they’re often better able to respond and react to them when they appear.

Encourage your team to strive towards reaching project aspirations and reward them when they are met.