The Three Questions Every Project Team Should Answer on Day One
How to start projects strong, stay focused, and deliver results that improve readiness.
Starting a new project is exciting. The vision is fresh, the team is aligned, and energy is high. Yet every experienced project leader knows there will be moments when attention shifts and competing priorities emerge. The challenge isn’t to prevent those moments—it’s to ensure the project keeps advancing through them.
That starts by recognizing that momentum alone isn’t enough. Projects succeed when they begin with a shared definition of success, a clear-eyed look at what could slow progress, and agreement on who needs to be engaged at each stage. These discussions, held at the very outset, create a compass the team can follow when the pull of other demands inevitably sets in.
By asking three specific questions on day one, you give your project the focus and resilience it needs to move steadily from kickoff to completion.
1. What Does Success Look Like?
Every project needs a target. Without a clear, shared definition of success, even the best-intentioned teams can lose focus. Once the work begins, meetings, conversations, and good ideas will surface—all of which can add value, but also risk pulling attention away from the original purpose.
In preparedness work, this clarity matters even more because preparedness is never “done.” There is always more that can be improved, tested, or refined. Without a defined end state, it’s easy to keep tweaking indefinitely instead of recognizing when you’ve met your goal and moving on to the next priority. Defining success from the start ensures you know exactly what you’re aiming for and when it’s time to advance the capability rather than continue polishing it.
Clear success criteria also allow you to capture and prioritize new ideas without derailing current work. This is where running your office like a Project Management Office (PMO) becomes invaluable. A PMO provides a process to collect, evaluate, and decide which ideas to pursue now and which to schedule for later. I dig into this idea further in Structured to Succeed: Why You Should Run Your Office Like a PMO, which outlines how to maintain focus while still encouraging innovation.
2. What Could Slow Us Down?
A project schedule is only as good as the risks and slowdowns it anticipates. These can include stakeholder availability, competing priorities, EOC activations due to incidents, or the time it takes for reviews and approvals. When these factors are identified early, the team can build a realistic timeline that accounts for potential delays instead of being derailed by them.
Another important consideration is when value starts being produced. If the first real benefits of the project aren’t realized until the very end, that’s a long time to wait, especially if the capability being developed is needed in response to an incident. The earlier your plan begins delivering measurable improvements, the sooner your agency can put them to use.
One way to keep momentum and deliver value sooner is by structuring work so progress in one area doesn’t always depend on another being finished first. “Start-to-start” sequencing—where the start of one task triggers the start of another—can help keep multiple work streams moving in parallel, even when one part of the project experiences delays.
3. Who Needs to Be in the Loop?
Identifying the right people from the start—and knowing how they’ll be engaged—is critical to keeping a project moving. This includes not only decision-makers, but also the subject matter experts who can provide the insight and solutions needed to overcome challenges.
Without these voices, projects can stall or feel more difficult than they really are. A topic that seems complicated to the project team might be something an experienced colleague can resolve quickly, saving weeks of effort. Involving the right expertise early ensures that obstacles are addressed efficiently and decisions are well-informed.
A clear plan for who is involved, when they are consulted, and how information flows between stakeholders helps maintain momentum and prevents rework. The goal isn’t to include everyone in every conversation but to ensure the right people are in the right discussions at the right time.
Keeping the Focus on the Outcome
Answering these three questions on day one does more than set the tone for the kickoff—it creates a framework the team can return to throughout the project. As priorities shift, decisions are made, and new challenges arise, these answers act as a compass to keep the work aligned with the original purpose.
In emergency management, that purpose is rarely just about producing a document or delivering a training. It’s about improving readiness. The outcome isn’t the binder on the shelf or the exercise report, but the capability you’ve built and the confidence your team has in using it when it matters.
That’s why clear project management processes are so important. They give everyone involved a shared understanding of how the work will be managed, how decisions will be made, and how progress will be measured. With that clarity, the team can focus on outcomes instead of getting bogged down in process or struggling to figure out the next step.
For paying subscribers, the Project Management in Emergency Management Playbook lays out this process in detail — from initiation to completion — with new topics and chapters added as they’re developed. It’s a work in progress by design, evolving to reflect lessons learned, new tools, and real-world challenges. The goal is to give you practical, actionable guidance you can apply right now, while continuing to expand the playbook into a comprehensive resource for managing preparedness projects. The more effectively you manage the process, the more attention you can devote to the end goal: enhancing your organization’s readiness to face whatever comes next.
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