How to Use ‘5 Useful Questions’ to Improve Your Project

I was browsing Seth Godin’s blog and came across this article on “5 Useful Questions”. These five useful questions are a fantastic way to improve your project and make sure that your goal is worth meeting and that you’re also on track to meet that goal.  

As Seth says, “They might be difficult to answer, but your project will benefit”

If you’ve recently rolled off a project that didn’t go so well, or are in the midst of ongoing projects now, it’s always beneficial to step back and take a critical view of a project or situation. Helpful and constructive introspection is essential to becoming better at any occupation. Taking time to engage in a productive “after action review” will help assess what is going well and what can be improved.     

Question #1

What’s the hard part? Which part of your work, if it suddenly got much better, would have the biggest impact on the outcome you seek?

This is a great question because often the hardest part is the part that’s actually worth the money. The challenge here is to spend more time thinking strategically and aim to offload or outsource as much as possible. This can be super challenging, especially if you’re someone who likes to manage each step of a project yourself. 

Question #2

How are you spending your time? If we took at look at your calendar, how much time is spent reacting or responding to incoming, how much is under your control, and how much is focused on the hard part?

This is key because effective time management is the most important skill to accomplish any project efficiently. Time tracking is an effective exercise to evaluate your time. Take a week in your life or the span of your project and track your working hours in half hour increments. If you find large chunks of time spent unproductively, this is a great way to encourage yourself to redirect your time and energy back to the main project at hand.  

Here’s my take on Time Hacks

Question #3

What do you need to know? What are the skills that you don’t have that would make your work more effective?

There’s a saying “you don’t know what you don’t know” but I have found that often you know more than you think. You also tend to have more questions than you realize, but actually taking the step from wondering those questions to getting answers to those questions is a big step. Make a list of things you want to know, prioritize them, and set about gathering the answers.  

Question #4

What is the scary part? Which outcomes or interactions are you trying to avoid thinking about or interacting with? Why?

Our fears can be powerful guides. If you pay attention to what is scary, you will have powerful clues to your real desires. For example, if what scares you is failure and the opinions other people might have of you, this can be a powerful clue to where you draw your motivation. Speaking personally, I tend to be most “afraid” of investing time in a project that doesn’t pan out or bring the financial power I had planned. This fear encourages me to relax and trust the process of learning. When you invest in the process of learning and practicing a new skill, you have this mastery for life, regardless of the perceived success or failure of the project. 

Question #5

Is it worth it? After looking at your four answers to these questions, you might have a better idea of what it will take for your project to reach its potential. Does the outcome of the project–for those you serve and for you–justify what it will take to get it there?

This is the final question – is it worth your time? The answer might be simple. And usually for me, this answer is yes. As long as you’re investing your time to learn and grow, the outcome is increased skill and mastery. This result is always worth the time it takes. The more you invest yourself in growth, the more your abilities will grow in turn.

BOTTOM LINE

It’s not always easy to ask yourself challenging questions. However, evaluating yourself in projects is a great way to make sure you’re on track to meet your goal. It’s also a good discover whether that goal is worth meeting!