🔗 The 5 Ps: Achieving Focus in Any Endeavor | cek.log

The 5 Ps: Achieving Focus in Any Endeavor | cek.log

The 5 Ps : PURPOSE, PRINCIPLES, PRIORITIES, PLAN, AND PEOPLE (…) a tool that helps projects be focused: the “5Ps”:

• Purpose : Why do we exist? Why are we in business? Where do we want to be in the future? What will we deliver?
• Principles : What are the non-negotiable rules and key strategies? How will we act?
• Priorities : What’s the framework for tradeoffs?
• Plan : How are we going to stage and tackle solving the problems? What are the known dates & forcing functions on the calendar?
• People : Who’s accountable for every key part of the plan?

There are tons of frameworks/tools for helping people understand roles & responsibilities. (…) They can all be made to work, as long as you don’t over-do it (just like you should not over-do the 5 Ps). To illustrate (…) I’ll use RACI :

• Responsible – The individual(s) who do the work to achieve the deliverable.
• Approver – The one (and only one!) person who is ultimately answerable for the correct and thorough completion of the deliverable.
• Consulted – Those whose opinions are sought; generally via two-way communication.
• Informed – Those who are neither responsible, accountable, or consulted; but told.

Use whatever tool you want, but you do need to explicitly write down the names of individuals for each part of your plan. Avoid naming groups such as partners; if I can’t identify a person I usually view that as a red-flag and something that needs to be followed up on.