2 posts tagged with "Technical Documentation"

The project kicked off on a Tuesday. Everyone left the kickoff meeting feeling good — the timeline looked reasonable, the budget had been approved, and the vendor seemed sharp. Six weeks later, the client was furious. The vendor had delivered exactly what the SOW said. And that was the problem.

The SOW described outputs. It said nothing about outcomes. The vendor built the thing. They just didn't build the right thing.

The project kickoff went well. Everyone left the room nodding. You sent around the action plan the following Monday — clean layout, responsibilities assigned, deadlines in the cells. Two weeks later, half the tasks hadn't moved. The people assigned to them weren't confused or lazy. They just didn't understand why their piece mattered, so when something more urgent landed on their desk, the action plan lost.

That's not a motivation problem. That's a document problem.

Most action plans are essentially decorated to-do lists. Task. Owner. Due date. Repeat. They capture what needs to happen but stay completely silent on why each step connects to the next, and why any of it matters enough to protect from the friction of a normal working week.