For any initiative involving people carrying out direction to accomplish something, there are three components that should always exist.   Communication, Compliance and Vitality

Communication

Communication is telling the execution team what is to be done,  maybe giving the planning and rationale, but at least telling them what is to be done and how, with what resources, etc.. 

Compliance is checking to see if they’re doing what they were told, with what method, achieving what quality.

Consider asking a teenager to mow your lawn.   Maybe it’s your son, maybe you’re paying him, still, there is at least an implied set of objectives, tools, techniques.  If you accept that he knows how to operate a lawn mower, does he know how to fill it with fuel?  Set the mowing height?  Have you told him what mowing height you want?  How to trim around bushes?  What to do with clippings?  That’s the communication part.

Does he see his objective as cutting the grass, or making the yard look good, which means cutting the grass in a quality way, not missing spots, trimming, sweeping, raking, disposal.  Was this part of the communication?  Putting the mower away afterward?  Cleaning it before sticking it back in the garage? Cleaning up sweepings, cuttings, rubbish?  This is part of a quality Communication function.

Compliance

Do you check before he disappears or gets paid … missed spots?  Poor trimming?  Cuttings blown onto the street instead of bagged?  Lawnmower put away dirty and clogged with wet clippings?

Can we translate these things into a IT delivery project?  Of course we can, and to any other initiative in human experience that involves a specification, a standard and a review for continued validation.  Any kind of project management … or maybe management of anything.

How many stakeholders are involved and do they need communication beyond the actual development and test and deployment teams?

Have to mention Agile these days … doesn’t matter …  in either ‘regular’ project management or Agile, the effort put into writing acceptance criteria that are thorough, specific (measurable), meaningful has leverage on closing a significant risk gap in project success.

Vitality

Vitality is going back to visit the process at some point and hopefully repeatedly to see if the original instructions are still valid.  Have conditions changed?  Different business drivers?  Competition? Different environment or conditions?  New technology?