Lisa Sieverts

Visiting Northeast Pennsylvania

Currently reading: The Living Mountain by Nan Shepherd 📚

Heading off to my nephew’s wedding, first family gathering in a decade! I’m thrilled about my new niece-in-law.

？Have you heard about Story Mapping? It’s a great tool for projects.

When a team creates a Story Map, they gain a visual tool that guides their work and keeps them aligned with the project’s key objectives.

Story Mapping is useful for Agile projects, where typically the team plans for only a few weeks at a time.

🧭 The Map helps maintain focus on the big picture and overarching goals, preventing the project from getting lost in the minutiae of everyday work.

Last week, I had the opportunity to collaborate with a start-up company to create their first Story Map.

In just two hours, we outlined the essential components of their project.

🤼 The most rewarding aspect was the rich conversation that unfolded. By consistently asking questions about how their application would function, I encouraged the team to think deeply about user experience.

These talented developers experienced a breakthrough in understanding their own application, which will guide both major and minor decisions over the coming months.

They’re currently grappling with a critical question: “What’s the most impactful yet minimal feature set we can present to our users?”

Thanks to the Story Map, they now have that answer.

Finished reading: Amos Fortune, Free Man by Elizabeth Yates 📚Short YA novel, written decades ago, about an enslaved person who bought his way out and founded a lecture series in NH. The book is severely dated in many, many ways.

Finished reading: An Unkindness of Ghosts by Rivers Solomon 📚I didn’t love it, found it tedious in spots. Interesting apocalyptic space fiction.

🎵 Absolutely loving this new album by Jake Blount, available on Bandcamp with all proceeds going to the performers today (Bandcamp Friday). Americana Apocolypse Music, perfectly done. https://jakeblountmusic.bandcamp.com/album/symbiont

Finished reading: Cunning Folk by Tabitha Stanmore 📚Interesting non-fiction about the “early modern” period, which I learned is sort of 1300-1650, and how often magic was a part of everyday life.

Finished reading: Master Slave Husband Wife by Ilyon Woo 📚Excellent non-fiction about two enslaved people who successfully escaped, and how much America and the Constitution stood in their way. I learned a lot.

Currently reading: An Unkindness of Ghosts by Rivers Solomon 📚

Currently reading: In the Shadow of the Dam by Elizabeth M. Sharpe 📚

😱 Are you making this mistake with your projects? Projects are launched without clearly specifying The Need.

This happens all too often!

🌀 When we skip this step, projects end up meandering, taking up time but never reaching completion.

The Need describes the situation today. We have looked at our current environment and can say “these specific problems must be solved.”

🦄 Instead we often skip ahead and focus on the future, documenting how the world will be wonderful once the project is complete.

For example, the leaders might say “We need a strategic marketing plan.” That’s skipping ahead to the solution! As project managers, we have to ask probing questions to identify the problem they want solved. Perhaps the Need is that sales are slowing. Or the Need is that we’re introducing a new product. Can you see how these different Needs would lead to different solutions?

⛈️ When we don’t take the time to describe the issues today, we are in danger of spending time on the wrong stuff. We get to the end of the project and realize we never solved the original problem.

Before your next launch, make sure you and your team fully understand The Need for the project. With this one easy step, your projects will proceed more smoothly without chaos and confusion.

✅ NEXT STEP

When you want help identifying The Need for your projects, message me here on LinkedIn. Let’s set up a Discovery Call to explore how I can help you achieve your project goals.

What is uncertainty and why should you care? Well …

😱 How are your projects going?

Is everything proceeding smoothly, or are issues keeping you up at night with escalating worries? Both scenarios tie back to a common factor: uncertainty.

Uncertainty is about unknowns; more unknowns mean greater uncertainty.

For example, when your team’s project is similar to previous work, with only a few unknowns, the project has low uncertainty.

Conversely, if the project involves uncharted territory for the team, the organization, or the customers—particularly when they are unclear about their needs—the project has high uncertainty.

🎯 For project managers, assessing the level of uncertainty is a critical consideration when determining their approach.

📋 Projects with low uncertainty are well-suited to a predictive management process. This involves allocating time upfront to thoroughly plan the project, allowing the project manager and team to estimate tasks and develop a detailed schedule.

🌀 In contrast, high-uncertainty projects require a different strategy. The predictive approach would result in wasted effort since attempting to forecast precise tasks is futile.

✅ In such cases, an Agile approach is adopted. Agile employs a flexible method that supports making informed short-term decisions aligned with the project’s overarching goals.

How are your projects going? Perhaps a different approach will help you get a better night’s sleep.

Next Step For assistance navigating the unknowns, contact me at lks@lisasieverts.com to schedule a Discovery Call and ease your project stress.

Currently reading: Penric’s Demon by Lois McMaster Bujold 📚

Currently reading: Master Slave Husband Wife by Ilyon Woo 📚This month’s Library book group read.

Quit reading: Household Saints by Francine Prose 📚Long, boring, and child deaths. No reason to keep reading it.

Finished reading: The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi by Shannon Chakraborty 📚Fun! Pirates who happen to be middle-aged, out in the Indian Ocean during an interesting period of time. Magic, too.

Currently reading: Cunning Folk by Tabitha Stanmore 📚

Currently reading: Household Saints by Francine Prose 📚

Finished reading: Emily Wilde’s Map of the Otherlands by Heather Fawcett 📚silly but a very fun read. Faeries, the Alps, and a neurodivergent heroine.

Finished reading: Becoming Ella Fitzgerald: The Jazz Singer Who Transformed American Song by Judith Tick 📚Interesting social history, worth reading.

Finished reading: Sweet Taste of Liberty: A True Story of Slavery and Restitution in America by W. Caleb McDaniel 📚Non-fiction about a Black woman, freed in the 1840s but then kidnapped and re-enslaved for 20 years who was then able to receive a pitiably small financial recompense from the enslaver.

Currently reading: The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi by Shannon Chakraborty 📚

Currently reading: Emily Wilde’s Map of the Otherlands by Heather Fawcett 📚

Finished reading: North Woods by Daniel Mason 📚A wonderful novel. I immediately started to read it for a second time, to catch more of the nuance. New England gothic, some elements of horror but only in service to the story.