Design the perfect outfit for your project. We design Risk & Issues lists to mitigate risks; how about accessorizing with an Opportunity list for enhancing success.

Phil Komarny (@PhilKomarny), CIO at Seton Hill in Pennsylvania indicates that successful projects are an “open and collaborative experience.” Vala Afshar (@ValaAfshar), CMO at Enterasys in New Hampshire, “project sponsors communicated the ‘why’ and then invited community feedback.”

At the beginning of the project, think about the attributes of amazing projects and deliberately plan to make them happen.

1. Build an Interested, Positive Team. Good attitudes and sincere interest is infectious. If you’ve communicated the ‘why,’ now look for the ‘can do’ quotient when selecting team members to make the ‘how’ happen. I quote NFL Coach Don Coryell: “The country is full of good coaches. What it takes to win is a bunch of interested players.”

2. Incent and Reward Collaboration and Engagement. No I in Team, folks. Between e-mail, phones, video conferencing, social media, and the myriad of collaboration platforms, there are a plethora of methods to talk to each other. Build simple processes and tools to encourage, incent, measure, collaboration. Michael Krigsman (@mkrigsman), CEO of Asuret, tells me that there is a connection between the quality and quantity of collaboration and positive outcomes.

3. Celebrate Progress. When a substantive deliverable has been achieved, buy pizza, make brownies, go take a walk together in the sunshine. This gives the team fuel to go on to the next big thing.

4. Be Inclusive. Make sure team members are empowered to participate and contribute as equally as possible. Not everyone is an extrovert; take time to seek the opinion of the quieter team members. Welcome new team members.

5. Define Success. If you’ve stated what ‘good’ looks like, everyone will know it when it happens.

Go forth and make your project look great – dress it for success.

Asides:

- Most thought-provoking moment of Super Bowl 47: When the lights went out. Checked your disaster recovery and/or business continuity plan lately?

- Chronically negative people puzzle and annoy me. If you aren’t at work to figure out how things CAN be done, why are you here at all? And leaders, why do you put up with the chronically negative person in your organization?

- Things to think about: 1. Not making a decision is making a decision. 2. Finish what you’ve started before adding more.

- If you are in Dover, NH, check out Cara, new pub & eatery near the train tracks downtown. If you are in Durham, NH, look for new Mexican restaurant on Jenkins Court soon, across from Jenkin’s Quality Goods.