ARTICLE SUMMARY: Alright, it’s Monday morning and you just kicked off a new project, everyone is excited and raring to go. You can see and feel the optimism the team has on their faces.
Then the shoe drops and all chaos breaks out. Turns out that the expectations between you, the stakeholders and the rest of the team do not align and causing major friction between all participants involved with the project. There is a solution.
“The Power of the Project Manifesto: How to Keep your Team Focused” by Olga Agafonova talks about this problem and how to avoid it. Her advice is to create a manifesto to keep all team members on the same page. To create one she tells you
- How to structure your project manifesto
- The manifesto is ready. What’s next?
- Never underestimate the power of this small but mighty document
A manifesto serves as a unifying document that everyone involved can refer back to. A shared understanding of principles and values fosters collaboration and reduces misunderstandings or misaligned priorities. It prevents you from being blindsided by heated debates and new requirements that seemingly come out of nowhere.
By stating your values upfront, you create a framework for making confident design choices that you can defend and explain. This is especially useful when experimenting or taking risks. A manifesto can inspire passion and commitment. When your project is anchored in values and purpose, it resonates more deeply with your team and audience.
Olga Agafonova reminds us “When team alignment becomes complex and heavy, you now have something to point to and say, “This is what we agreed on.” Without this documentation, it becomes easy to assume decisions are made subjectively or without due process.’
This is a great article to help keep the focus on the job at hand and limits the noise caused by poor communication.
Let us know what you think in the comments.
