You Can Do This: Understand and Solve Organizational Problems to Jumpstart a Dead Project
Summary
Key Insights
-
•
Project delays often arise from deep organizational and cultural issues rather than team incompetence.
-
•
Engaging stakeholders as co-creators in research recommendations boosts buy-in and eases persuasion.
-
•
Distinguishing immediate domain (project and industry) from extended domain (monitoring and success definitions) is critical to managing project scope.
-
•
Edgar Schein’s three levels of culture—artifacts, espoused beliefs, and unconscious assumptions—help reveal hidden organizational dynamics.
-
•
Cross-functional projects often fail due to siloed reporting and unconscious allegiance to functional areas over project teams.
-
•
Taking meeting minutes with named action items assigned to leaders reduced conflict and clarified accountability.
-
•
Pairing technical developers with subject matter experts enables translating complex domain knowledge into actionable design artifacts.
-
•
Soft systems methodology allows modeling of ‘soft’ organizational influences on project success, including norms and values.
-
•
Engagement challenges manifest at multiple levels: sponsors, project teams, and external stakeholders require targeted approaches.
-
•
Grassroots technical collaboration and integration efforts can succeed even when formal management engagement is lacking.
Notable Quotes
"When projects are late or delayed it’s often due to organizational and cultural issues rather than conduct of the project team."
"I like to engage my stakeholders as co-creators and co-discoverers so their ideas and concerns get reflected in recommendations."
"People on the project were reporting back to management in their silo, not talking to one another."
"I found the problem solver in the UI developer and identified the project’s sponsor who really felt the pain."
"Managers were asking for user stories but hadn’t done any analysis or design — they didn’t understand the scope."
"The difference between the way people talk about how things are done and how they are actually done reveals unconscious assumptions."
"Decision making here is basically forge trading — people argue and withhold support until they get what they want."
"Our technical leads started attending other teams’ meetings, helping break down integration barriers."
"At the turning point, the team realized they were in charge of their own process and got engaged."
"The biggest problem was to solve the engagement problem first with the sponsor, then the team, then external stakeholders."
Or choose a question:
More Videos
"VOC wasn’t a replacement for user research, but an enhancer that captured nuggets researchers might miss during discovery."
Shipra KayanHow we Built a VoC (Voice of the Customer) Practice at Upwork from the Ground Up
September 30, 2021
"The Library of Congress web presence was a findability nightmare, like the Winchester Mystery House."
Peter MorvilleThe Architecture of Understanding
May 13, 2015
"I want people to question why I’m not in the room if I’m not there."
Renee ReidBecoming a ResearchH.E.R (Highly Enterprise Ready)
June 3, 2019
"Language can be vague, imprecise, and even contradictory, but the body can be a bridge to understanding."
Dane DeSutterKeeping the Body in Mind: What Gestures and Embodied Actions Tell You That Users May Not
March 26, 2024
"If you build accessible shopping with these four keys, compliance with legal standards like WCAG will naturally fall into place."
Sam ProulxOnline Shopping: Designing an Accessible Experience
October 3, 2023
"It costs less to keep the customers you have than to acquire new ones."
Andrew Custage Michael MallettThe Digital Journey: Research on Consumer Frustration and Loyalty
March 29, 2023
"Why be here if you’re not going to be here."
Shelby SwitzerMaking Space for Community Knowledge-sharing in a Distributed World
December 10, 2021
"The choices we make about AI are about much more than speed versus quality — they define how we value research and our relationships."
Llewyn PaineCoexisting with AI: A practical guide for researchers to navigate tools, ethics, and integration
March 11, 2025
"Learning is the new knowing, and researchers are catalysts of organizational learning."
Robin BeersNavigating organizational systems: Rethinking researcher’s role in driving change
March 13, 2025
