What Went Wrong in My Last Project Management Effort

Ever wondered what a failed project can teach you? Here’s the truth: 𝑭𝒂𝒊𝒍𝒖𝒓𝒆 𝒊𝒔 𝒐𝒇𝒕𝒆𝒏 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒃𝒆𝒔𝒕 𝒕𝒆𝒂𝒄𝒉𝒆𝒓! 5 Lessons from a Failed Geospatial Project! After facing my fair share of setbacks in geospatial projects, I’ve learned that each failure holds a lesson that reshapes how we approach future work at New Light Technologies Here’s what I learned—and how it’s transformed my entire process: 1️⃣ 𝘾𝙡𝙖𝙧𝙞𝙩𝙮 𝙊𝙫𝙚𝙧 𝘾𝙤𝙢𝙥𝙡𝙚𝙭𝙞𝙩𝙮 What Went Wrong: We tried to solve everything, and in the end, we solved nothing. Focus on one clear goal at a time. Simplify the problem, and progress will follow. 2️⃣ 𝘿𝙖𝙩𝙖 𝙌𝙪𝙖𝙡𝙞𝙩𝙮 = 𝙋𝙧𝙤𝙟𝙚𝙘𝙩 𝙌𝙪𝙖𝙡𝙞𝙩𝙮 What Went Wrong: Poor data quality led to outputs no one trusted.  The Fix: Invest in data validation—quality is always more important than quantity. 3️⃣ 𝙎𝙩𝙖𝙠𝙚𝙝𝙤𝙡𝙙𝙚𝙧 𝘾𝙤𝙢𝙢𝙪𝙣𝙞𝙘𝙖𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣 𝙞𝙨 𝙆𝙚𝙮 What Went Wrong: Miscommunication caused misaligned expectations across teams.  The Fix: Regular, open communication keeps everyone aligned and on track. 4️⃣ 𝙋𝙡𝙖𝙣 𝙛𝙤𝙧 𝙎𝙘𝙖𝙡𝙖𝙗𝙞𝙡𝙞𝙩𝙮 What Went Wrong: The system couldn’t scale, leaving users frustrated.  The Fix: Design with growth in mind. Ensure systems are built to adapt. 5️⃣ 𝘼𝙘𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣𝙖𝙗𝙡𝙚 𝙄𝙣𝙨𝙞𝙜𝙝𝙩𝙨 > 𝙋𝙧𝙚𝙩𝙩𝙮 𝙈𝙖𝙥𝙨 What Went Wrong: Beautiful maps that didn’t help drive decisions.  The Fix: Focus on actionable insights. Results speak louder than aesthetics. Failure isn’t the end—it’s the beginning of a new approach. Ready to turn your data into actionable insights? Let’s collaborate at newlighttechnologies.com to bring your next project to life. Follow Ghermay A. #Geospatial #Lessons #innovation #DataScience #ProjectManagement

My Failure - #1: Slow down so you don’t F up. When we kicked off our website refresh, my goal was clear: move fast and free up my CEO’s time so she could stay focused on the bigger picture. As VP of Marketing, I felt confident our team could handle the execution - easy right. Ha. Here’s the reality- no one at a company has a stronger pulse on evolving priorities than the CEO. By the time I looped her in, the work no longer aligned with her evolving vision. Deadlines were missed. Back to the drawing board. It wasn’t that the work was wrong—it’s that I skipped a crucial step. I thought I was saving time, but I was creating friction. What I learned: 1. Leadership isn’t just about driving strategy; it’s about aligning with key stakeholders. The CEO doesn’t need to be in every detail, but they do need to feel connected to the process. 2. A CEO’s input is less about tactics and more about ensuring the work aligns with the broader vision. Ignoring that early leads to rework later. 3. Moving fast without alignment isn’t speed—it’s inefficiency disguised as progress. Looking forward: • Stakeholder alignment is step one for every major project. Especially when it involves the CEO • Build processes that enable quick, meaningful check-ins at key points—this keeps momentum without losing alignment • Prioritize clarity over speed. A little extra time upfront saves a lot of time downstream. 👇🏻 This was a humbling lesson/reminder in leadership. I didn’t just learn how to avoid this mistake—I learned how to create better processes that continue to support the big picture. - - - - - - Hoping to be more vulnerable in 2025 and share mistakes publicly to force growth but also help show it’s sometimes the little mistakes that fuel growth. No judgement please as you start to see more of these from me :)

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