The Project Is Complete, Now What? How to Turn Projects Into Initiatives

IN A RELAY RACE, SPEED AND ATHLETICISM AREN’T THE ONLY FACTORS THAT LEAD TO VICTORY.

There are several crucial moments—like when the baton is handed from one runner to the next—that can determine the outcome of the race. Without a well-rehearsed handoff, any gains the first runner made will be lost, and the entire team loses momentum.

The reason I bring it up is because every business has these “baton handoff” moments. Unfortunately, not every company understands just how much momentum can be sapped by a poor handoff.

I typically see this problem come up when a team is wrapping up a big project, especially one being led by cross-functional stakeholders. What really needs to happen is a handoff—the completed project becomes an initiative the company can execute. But when everyone assumes the process will organically occur, the baton gets dropped. 

The good news is that it isn’t difficult to ensure a smooth transition from project to initiative. You just need to follow a few rules:

1. Don’t assume project management software will take you all the way to the finish line.

Project management software is very much “in” right now. The industry was worth $4.2 billion in 2019 and is set for double-digit annual growth through the mid-2020s. The reason is simple: this software makes it easy for a diverse set of stakeholders to contribute to a project and keep an eye on its progress. 

That’s great for completing a project, but what happens once it’s finished? What happens when the stakeholders who’ve been working cross-functionally return to their core responsibilities? How does the project get turned into an initiative? Project management software doesn’t help answer those questions because that’s not what it was built to do. 

There’s nothing wrong with relying on a project management tool; just be aware that it’s only the first “runner” in the relay analogy. You need additional tools to implement what you’ve created and get you to the finish line. 

In fact, this is one of the reasons why we integrate MindStrength with major project management tools like Asana. That way, companies that like to use project management software can smoothly move from the project phase to a successful initiative implementation. 

2. Establish a standard post-project process.

The first thing to acknowledge when implementing a project is that waiting for a process to develop organically is not your best option. Relay runners don’t hope the handoff goes well when they try it for the first time during a race. They practice the transition until it’s seamless.

If you wait to figure out how to implement a project until after the development phase or once it goes live, you risk coming up with an unreliable or unrepeatable process that hamstrings your ability to execute down the line.

For example, my team is working with a leading technology company that has multiple offices around the world. An executive from the company told me that during the COVID-19 pandemic, most people are working remotely. The problem is, there’s no shared gold-standard process for how the company develops and implements new service and support processes for their customers. Each office executes new projects in different ways, which creates company-wide inconsistencies that desperately need to be uniform across the board. 

Once a project is ready to transition from development, there has to be a cohesive, repeatable way to ensure that each team—sales, product, support, manufacturing, and more—understands what the new initiative means for their work. Structure is the only way to ensure consistent execution. 

3. Allow stakeholders to follow through naturally.

When a project is important, company leadership will logically assign their most capable people to it.

But there’s often not a way for those diverse stakeholders to stay involved with the project once development is complete. Many times, executives involved in making crucial decisions about a project turn their attention elsewhere before it’s been implemented. So the people who know the most about a project fade away, off to another initiative or back to their regular responsibilities. That means the people who come in at the execution stage don’t usually have the context or the tools to properly implement the initiative. But with the right tool, executives stay engaged because their message, key processes, and intent is codified—making it easier to measure and scale the implementation phase.

Turning a project into an initiative all comes down to the handoffs. A relay runner transitioning a baton doesn’t come to a dead stop because that would kill the momentum. Instead, both runners match each other’s pace for a short time to ensure a smooth transition. On the same track, a company must enable executives to hand off a new strategic initiative to the project leaders responsible for implementing an initiative. Once the implementation is successful, another handoff happens that allows executives to keep their voices and visions alive throughout the ‘Go Live’ phase. This can only be done if leaders have the tools needed to execute.

When people know they’ll be responsible for handing off a project from one phase to the next and involved in the implementation of the initiative, it forces them to consider execution from the very beginning of the project. There’s no feeling that a project is out of their hands because they know the race isn’t over. 

In fact, it’s just begun. 

Akhil Kohli is the CEO and founder of MindStrength, the preeminent initiative execution platform for Fortune 500 and mid-size companies. MindStrength's Initiative Platform enables companies to execute against strategic initiatives at scale and with accountability at all levels of the organization.