Understanding project strategy

I’m not quite sure what we’ve gotten ourselves into. B!G has seven projects this semester for six different clients. It’s rather daunting and the scope of organization needed to complete these projects is larger than we’ve ever had in the past.

I met with a B!G project team today working on one of our more technical research projects and I was thrilled by their enthusiasm and professionalism given how ambiguous and open-ended the client objectives are.

After listening in to their status meeting and giving a few words on the client, I asked, "is anyone confused?”


“No no, everything’s fine”, they replied.


“Really? Cause I’m absolutely baffled by this project!”


I can only begin to understand our role in it by stepping back and understanding the project as a single objective – not an amalgam of separate, interrelated objectives. In fact, this is how I approach most of what we’re working on, including our own organizational strategies. It’s easy to parse things and chunk out work into chewable deliverables, but it’s infinitely more clarifying to take the harder route and elevate the scope to see how each project, each person, each client fits into overall business strategy.

I find that forming mental maps before really digging into the work and involving yourself in the hard facts of the project acts as a north star. It allows you to see how your work, no matter how trivial or irrelevant it may seem, fits into the larger picture. Knowing this positively affects personal motivation and keeps the research insights aligned to a single tone.