You Can Change Almost Anything in a Project, But You Must Not Change Its Purpose

In this episode, Ricardo emphasizes the need for change in project environments while cautioning against modifying the project's primary purpose or DNA. He underlines that while adapting and evolving is essential, changing fundamental goals can lead to confusion and a lack of focus. Using the example of building a school vs a hospital, he proposes that if the project's purpose changes considerably, it may be more effective to cancel the existing project and begin again. Ricardo highlights the need for clear project objectives to prevent projects from being disjointed and losing their initial intent.

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Hi everyone here. It's Ricardo Vargas and this is the 5 Minutes Podcast. Today I'd like to discuss with you about change and things we do not change and why this is important. Because right now everybody talks about the need for change, the need in a project environment to adapt, to learn, to rethink, to redevelop and to embrace change. And I cannot agree more with that. And this was a big shift. If we go back maybe 20 years ago, it was completely different. But there is one thing that I struggle to accept change, and this is the reason or the purpose of your project. It's the DNA of your project. For example, it's not nice that you are building a school and end up building a hospital. Why? I'm not saying that the school is is better or worse. I'm not judging that. But when you started building a school, the reason for you to build that school is different from the hospital. The purpose, it's completely different. And we need to be aware that when you go deep and change this, you are changing the DNA. So imagine if Ricardo goes back inside of himself and start changing some of his core values. Probably I will continue having my passport with Ricardo and my ID with Ricardo. But am I truly Ricardo or I became a different person? If you change that, and this is exactly what we need, we need to understand that we can change all factors that will help us to deliver the project.

But if we change, what is the benefit we expect? What is the reasoning for us to do that project? It's much better for us to just terminate that project and start a new one, and there is no problem on that. You just say, look, there is such a big change now that is much better that we just stop this project and let's start a new one called the hospital and not the school. I'm just using this as a simple example for you to understand, because it's so common that projects start to become Frankenstein. You know, they start to take pieces of these pieces of that. And at the end, after years, you know, how much money you spend, you know, how much time did you spend, but you don't know really what you want to accomplish. And this is where the critical thing is. So think about that. There are many things. Change is very valuable. And we incentivize change. However change in the purpose, change in the core DNA of the project. Maybe it's not the best idea. Think about that and see you next week with another five minutes podcast.

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You Can Change Almost Anything in a Project, But You Must Not Change Its Purpose

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