Inspire a shared vision

Majority of projects that a company undertakes has goals and objectives that support one or more strategies of the company. As we all know, every company executes strategies to win in the marketplace and realize its vision. So, on a project, it is the responsibility of the project sponsor and the project manager to clearly define the purpose of the project. It is very likely that if you ask people who worked hard on a project, if they knew the purpose of the project they worked on, you might get a quizzical look. One of the most common responses to that question is "I did what I was told to do." I feel that this is a failure on part of the project sponsor and the project manager (to certain extent) that the team members are uninformed or unaware about the objectives of a project. On those projects, where the team members are clear about the objective(s) of the project they are working on, they tend to be more committed. There is a sense of pride that the work that they are doing, is creating value for the company. This helps the project team members stay positive even during difficult times. They are more willing to go above and beyond to make sure that the project is successful. In order to make sure that every team member fully understands the objectives of the project, the project sponsor and project manager and their team leads need to continually communicate the vision. Every project has team members that are on-boarded throughout the life of the project, depending the needs of a specific phase of a project. So communicating the vision just once, at the beginning of the project is not sufficient.