How Lack of Clarity Led to Project Delays

After 300 days of what was supposed to be a six-week project, the developer told me he needed five more days. I walked in, pulled out a whiteboard… and found 96 unfinished tasks. We were deep into a project that should’ve been simple: speed up workstation logins for factory workers. The spec? 90 pages. The approach? Pure chaos. The developer was talented but overwhelmed. He dove in without a plan, stuck in tech stack debates, rewriting pieces mid-sprint, chasing clarity that never came. What looked like momentum was really just motion without direction. When I stepped in, I paused everything. We cleared a room, brought in five engineers, sticky notes, swimlanes, and one rule: no assumptions. We walked through every page of the spec and wrote out every missing piece of functionality by hand. The result? • 96 sticky notes. • No messaging system. • No architecture. •No scoped plan. The dev thought he needed five more days. We needed 45. And six engineers. This wasn’t a failure of effort. It was a failure of alignment. The problem wasn’t the code—it was leadership. No one defined what “done” looked like. No one checked. Since then, I’ve used one mantra: Get clear before you go fast. Because if you don’t, you’re not sprinting—you’re spiraling. #StartupLessons #TechLeadership #ProjectFailure #SoftwareDevelopment #ProductManagement #ClarityBeforeVelocity #EngineeringLeadership

In 2018, I almost derailed my career. Messed up pretty bad. And it had nothing to do with code. Back in my Lyft days, I was leading our first-gen self-driving vehicle initiative - my first time managing something of this scale. A complex, multi-team build involving autonomy stacks, hardware integration, cross-functional dependencies… the works. And... Lyft was in IPO mode. Pressure everywhere. Visibility at the highest levels. Here’s what I got wrong: I focused on execution. On making sure the tech worked. On ensuring the vehicle would hit its demo deadline. But I missed something critical: comms and alignment. → I didn’t update downstream teams fast enough. → I assumed shared understanding without confirming it. → I postponed raising risks because “we’ll fix it by next sprint.” → I under-communicated across functions, thinking speed = silence. The result? Delays. Misaligned expectations. A not-so-great review from a stakeholder who mattered. And a very uncomfortable meeting I won’t forget. But here’s what I learned - and what helped me course-correct: - Overcommunicate by default. Through ALL channels. - Transparency buys you trust, especially when stakes are high. - Alignment isn’t a one-time thing - it’s a constant recalibration. - If you think you're over-sharing, you're probably just scratching the surface. I also learned that in environments like an IPO-stage company, clarity is currency. Everyone’s running fast... but if you're not aligned, you’re just sprinting in different directions. We shipped. We learned. We iterated on the process, not just the product. And it made me a better builder - and a better communicator. And that helped me become a better entrepreneur - impacting thousands of lives now through Smart Green Card. If you’re leading a cross-functional project right now and feel that little knot in your stomach… It’s probably your gut telling you: “Talk to someone before it gets worse.” What's your eye-opening career experience? Share it in the comments! #Leadership #Communication #SelfDriving #Lyft #IPO #TechLessons #ProjectManagement #Transparency

🚨Have you ever been on a project where you were told to dive right into execution without an agreed upon project plan? Years ago when I was a young project manager, I was assigned to lead a project implementing a new technical capability for a client. However, the problem was plagued by executives at the top who wanted to see quick results, starting with the project sponsor. 💰 Years ago, I wasn’t as experienced in knowing how to successfully push back on calls to dive right into project execution. Despite offering some objections and warning of likely poor outcomes, the sponsor overruled me and directed the team to start executing. Without a complete and agreed upon project plan, we ran into several issues: 🔥Lack of direction and focus: this lead to misaligned efforts, and inefficiencies. 🔥Scope creep: work kept piling on, adding to the project costs and timeline. 🔥Poor resource management: this led to burnout. 🔥Unhealthy work culture: the project team got burned out and felt that the executives cared more about their own wallets than their employees. 🔥Communication breakdowns: misunderstandings occurred when people operated on different assumptions. 🔥Poor quality & productivity: unhappy employees led to lower quality and productivity on the project, further increasing costs. 🔥Stakeholder dissatisfaction: some project team members left the organization and the client stakeholders were not happy with the end results. I did the best I could putting out fires, but being reactive was much less effective than being proactive. (It was a great learning moment for me!). To make matters worse, the project sponsor blamed me as the project manager and the team for the failures. 🫤 Fortunately, I had documented the sponsor’s direction and my early objections and warnings. Consequently, people in the org listened to me more often after that incident. 👍 👉 My advice: don’t let projects move forward without an agreed upon project plan. 👉 If you are forced to do so, document the direction, your objections and your warnings of consequences. 🤔 Has this ever happened to you? What other issues may arise when projects move into the execution phase too quickly? I’d love to hear your insights and examples in the comments! ____________________ 🌟 Want a proven leader for your business who can help transform your PMO into a strategic IMPACT DRIVER that can solve your greatest organizational issues? Today can be your lucky day! Reach out to me and let’s discuss what I can do for your org to support its goals and objectives! _________________ 🔔 Ring the bell to follow me on LinkedIn for topics on #ProjectManagement, #ProgramManagement, #PMO, #BusinessTransformation, #CareerTips, and #Leadership. #ProjectManager #ProgramManager #BusinessAnalysis #BusinessAnalyst #ProjectManagementProfessional #PMOLeadership #PMOLeader #ProjectManagementBestPractices #ProjectPlan #Communication #WorkCulture