The Project Delivered Everything It Was Asked. And Solved Nothing.

In this podcast, Ricardo explores the importance of identifying the real problem before implementing a project solution. Using the example of a slow elevator, he demonstrates how installing mirrors can reduce complaints without expensive technical improvements. He introduces the Double Diamond model from design thinking, emphasizing the need to understand and define problems before developing solutions. Ricardo highlights that many projects begin with predetermined solutions, overlooking their underlying purpose. He suggests three essential questions: What problem are we solving? Will delivering the project eliminate it? Can we test a cheaper alternative? Ultimately, he encourages project managers to challenge assumptions, avoid unnecessary expenses, and ensure projects deliver meaningful value rather than simply meeting scope, schedule, and budget requirements for stakeholders.

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Episode transcript

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Hello everybody, here is Ricardo Vargas, and this is the 5 Minutes Podcast.

Today I want to start with the story of an office building. The tenants start to complain that the elevator is old and slow. Some of them threaten to leave if nothing is done. The first ideas are all technical: replace the elevator, install a stronger motor, and change the system that controls the calls. All of them are expensive and slow. Then someone from building management suggests something much simpler: put mirrors next to the elevator. And the complaints go down.

The elevator is still slow, but people get distracted looking at themselves and stop noticing the wait.

Thomas Wedell-Wedellsborg (tomas uédel uédelsborg) tells this story in a Harvard Business Review article from 2017. His point is that very often we are solving the wrong problem. The problem was never the speed of the elevator. The problem was that waiting was boring. Now imagine that this building had opened a project to replace the elevator. Clear scope, approved schedule, fixed budget.

The project manager does a perfect job and delivers on time, on budget, and with quality. By our usual criteria, it would be a success. Even though it costs much more than a few mirrors.

This is the discomfort I want to bring today. Most of the time, the project arrives to us with the solution already chosen. The project charter does not say that the tenants are annoyed by the wait. It says: replace the elevator in building B.

And we are trained, and evaluated, to deliver exactly that. This is where design thinking helps. In the early 2000s, the UK Design Council created a model called the Double Diamond. The first diamond is about discovering and defining the right problem. The second is about developing and delivering the solution. What I see in many organizations is that the project is born in the second diamond. Someone skipped the first one, usually in a board meeting, and the project inherited the answer without inheriting the question.

The same article mentions a survey of 106 senior executives from 91 organizations in 17 countries. 85% of them agreed that their organizations are bad at diagnosing problems. In other words, almost everybody knows this happens. So what can we, as project managers, do without becoming the person who questions everything?

I like three questions, asked right at the start. The first: what problem does this project solve, in the words of the people who suffer from it, and not in the words of the solution? The second: if we deliver everything and the problem is still there, did the project succeed? The third: is there a cheap way to test if this is really the solution, before we spend the whole budget? None of these questions delays the project. They only delay the waste.

Questioning the problem is not disobeying the sponsor. It is protecting the sponsor's money. Sometimes the conversation confirms the original solution, and that is fine. At least now the project knows why it exists. Here is a challenge for this week. Take your most important project and write, in one sentence, the problem it solves. If the sentence you write is a description of the deliverable, maybe the project still does not know its own problem. And maybe there is a mirror waiting for us.

I hope you enjoyed this episode, and see you next week with another 5 Minutes Podcast.

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The Project Delivered Everything It Was Asked. And Solved Nothing.

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