Remember when projects were just for project managers? That world is gone.
I watched an implementation crash and burn last month – not because the PM was incompetent, but because the executive sponsor thought their job ended after the kickoff meeting.
The truth? Project delivery has silently become part of everyone’s job description.
Today’s reality is that successful implementations don’t fail on methodology – they fail on misaligned expectations about who’s responsible for what. As business leaders, we’ve inherited project responsibilities without the accompanying manual.
โ Your technical teams are drowning in day-to-day operations while trying to implement new solutions
โ Your vendors aren’t equipped to manage the cultural and process changes required for adoption
โ Your executives are expected to make high-stakes decisions without context
The disconnect happens when we treat implementation as a technical exercise rather than a business transformation. When technology solutions fail, they rarely fail because of the technology itself.
I’m seeing forward-thinking organizations succeed by approaching projects differently:
โข Recognizing that project leadership is a business function, not just an IT function
โข Creating clear lanes of responsibility between vendors, technical teams and executives
โข Building implementation plans around human behavior, not just technical requirements
What I find fascinating is how many companies still separate “the project” from “the business” when they’re fundamentally inseparable.
