Monitoring And Controlling Projects

Most L&D professionals learned the Kirkpatrick Model early on. Fewer have seen it applied beyond Level 1. Here's what each level can actually look like when you put it into practice, not just the textbook definition. ✨ Level 1: Reaction 🔹 Textbook version: Did learners find the training engaging and worth their time? ✅ In practice: Instead of "Did you enjoy this session?", ask "Was this relevant to the work you do?" and "Could you apply this right away?" ✅ Metric to track: Relevance and applicability ratings, not just satisfaction scores. ✨ Level 2: Learning 🔹 Textbook version: Did learners gain the intended knowledge or skills? ✅ In practice: Replace recall-based quizzes with scenario-based checks. Can the learner apply the concept to a situation they'd actually face? ✅ Metric to track: Pre/post assessment scores on scenario-based questions, not just "did you pass the quiz." ✨ Level 3: Behavior 🔹 Textbook version: Are learners applying what they learned on the job? ✅ In practice: 30/60/90-day check-ins, manager observations, or peer feedback on whether the new behavior is showing up in real work. ✅ Metric to track: % of participants demonstrating the target behavior, based on manager or peer input, not self-reported confidence. ✨ Level 4: Results 🔹 Textbook version: Did the training impact business outcomes? ✅ In practice: Pick one business metric the program was meant to influence, before you build it, not after, and track the change. ✅ Metric to track: Movement in that specific KPI (error rates, time-to-productivity, conversion rates, retention) compared to a baseline. Most programs are measured thoroughly at Level 1 and barely at all beyond it. But Levels 3 and 4 are where the "did this actually matter" conversation happens, and they are also where L&D earns a seat at the table. Which level does your organisation measure consistently, and which one do you wish you could measure better? #LearningAndDevelopment #LnD #KirkpatrickModel #TrainingEvaluation #InstructionalDesign #LearningMeasurement #TrainingAndDevelopment #LnDStrategy

Stop answering what's asked, Answer what's meant instead: When someone asks, "How's the project going?" most respond, "It's fine." But great leaders know this surface-level question masks deeper concerns: • "Should I be worried?" • "Are we meeting our goals?" • "When will I get the next update?" • "Do you need help?" Surface-level responses miss opportunities to: • Build trust through transparency • Provide actionable clarity • Demonstrate ownership • Address unspoken concerns Worse, vague answers breed doubt, cause churn, and trigger unnecessary escalations. Here's what to do instead: 1/ If you know the person: Use your understanding of their concerns and priorities. For example: • “It’s on track. We’re dialing up milestone M1 on Tuesday as planned. Our next status update is scheduled for Wednesday.” 2/ If you don’t know the person well: Provide an answer and invite clarity (demonstrates ownership). For example: • “The project is on track for delivery by XX/YY, and I’ve attached our latest bi-weekly update. Are there specific areas or concerns you’d like me to address?” Answering the question behind the question is a leadership superpower. PS: Questions are icebergs—90% lies beneath the surface. --- Follow me, tap the (🔔) Omar Halabieh for daily Leadership and Career posts.

Lou Gerstner walked into IBM in 1993 expecting a strategy problem. What he found was worse. Here's what leaders need to learn: Every division had a strategy. Every executive had a vision. Every team was chasing a different goal. Engineering was building for one future. Sales was selling into another. Marketing had its own roadmap entirely. At his first exec meeting, each leader presented different success metrics: Revenue. Market share. Innovation. NPS. Same company, completely different definitions of winning. Gerstner didn’t write a new strategy. He did something more powerful: He mandated one framework for priorities. Same metrics. Same language. Same scorecard. Within 6 months, misalignment became visible. Within a year, IBM started moving as one. I saw the same pattern play out in a Fortune 500 basement. The quarterly review was nearly over when the Head of Ops paused: “I need to be honest. I don’t even know what our top 3 priorities are right now.” Silence. Then heads nodded. The CMO had been focused on brand. Sales thought revenue was the priority. The CTO was deep in infrastructure rebuild. The CFO was chasing cost control. 9 executives. 27 different priorities. 3 overlaps. That’s not a team. That’s a collection of soloists. Strategy isn’t the problem. Alignment is. Everyone knows the strategy. But what are they actually optimizing for this week? I’ve seen it again and again: • Monday: “Retention is everything” • Friday: Sales signs three bad-fit clients to hit quota • Product starts chasing new features • Success never gets the memo 5 days. Alignment gone. So how do you fix it? 1. Make priorities visible weekly Every Monday: top 3 org-wide priorities, posted publicly. No guessing. No side quests. 2. Create explicit handoffs Marketing, sales, product, and success - define the exact criteria for every handoff. Spotify did this. Discovered 40% of handoffs had misaligned expectations. 3. Run weekly alignment checks One question: What are you optimizing for this week? If it doesn’t match the org’s top 3, you catch drift instantly. 4. One source of truth No more 50 dashboards. Microsoft did this with their Customer Success Score. Every division had to contribute to the same North Star. Alignment doesn’t happen by accident. It deteriorates by default. Great companies don’t assume alignment. They build it systematically. That Fortune 500 team? 6 months later, they went from 27 priorities to 3. Revenue grew 18%. Engagement jumped 43% → 71%. All because they stopped guessing. Want more research-backed frameworks like this? Join 11,000+ execs who get our newsletter every week: 👉 https://lnkd.in/en9vxeNk

💎 How To Track Your Impact (+ free Notion templates). How to document your small and big wins, visualize your work and the incredible impact you've made ↓ We often assume that good work speaks for itself. If we just work hard enough, our work will get noticed and we will be elevated across our career ladder. Yet more often than not, your achievements will get lost somewhere between reorg efforts, new priorities, abandoned initiatives and urgent deadlines. Managers change all the time. You might have a strong relationship with your manager already, but never get a chance to move up the ladder because they have already moved to another team. A new manager, despite all your efforts, often won’t be able to promote you as an internal policy might block any new promotions in their first 6 or 12 months. So you’ll have to start over again. A good way to push back is to have a “brag document” — a running document that lists your small and big achievements, feedback from your managers and colleagues, screenshots of your appraisals and recommendations, along with lessons you’ve learned. It also builds confidence in your abilities and helps you better see your career trajectory. Useful things to include: 🧠 New skills you’ve learned 🏅 New certificates you’ve acquired ⏱️ Impactful projects you’ve leaunched 🧪 Experiments or A/B tests you’ve initiated 🧭 Product metrics you’ve moved 👋 Onboarding sessions you helped with 🚀 Changes you’ve initiated 🗣️ Workshops you’ve conducted 🧑🏫 Mentoring sessions you’ve coached 🌟 Endorsements you’ve received 🤝 Collaboration wins across departments 🧹 How you’ve dealt with design debt 📦 Successful scoping and getting buy-in 🛠️ Tools or systems you’ve introduced 🔧 Bugs or issues you proactively resolved 📣 Coordinating communication in teams 🔮 Lessons you’ve learned 🧯 Conflicts you’ve resolved There are plenty of things that can go in such a document. Typically it’s a simple Notion page or a Google Doc that you set up once and keep updating regularly. One useful habit that can help there is to always update the document after a retrospective session with your team and around a month later. The reason for that is that you’ll need to accumulate and add concrete evidence and results of the impact of your work. Typically business metrics are lagging metrics, so it will take a while until you get some results. One word of caution: it doesn’t work well if you update in huge and bulky batches as memories become a bit blurry and details get lost. Also, don’t think just about the design work — work also happens outside of the design work as we saw in the list above. Also, as Stephen Kernan noted once, whenever possible, try linking your accomplishments to the career ladder one level above your current role. If you can prove that you’ve been performing at the next level for past 3-6 months, you will make the case for your promotion strong and more obvious. (Useful templates in the comments below ↓)

Your annual planning process is probably creating the problems it's supposed to solve. Here's what I see at many companies. Leadership spends weeks in planning sessions. Teams get handed a roadmap. Everyone goes back to their desks committed to a set of features. And then reality hits. By March, the assumptions that shaped the plan no longer hold. The market shifted. A competitor moved. Customer research uncovered something the planning process never accounted for. But the roadmap is locked, and the quarterly commitments are already in stakeholder decks. This is the alignment gap. The plan doesn't match reality, but no one has permission to say so out loud. The problem isn't that companies plan. The problem is what they're committing to. When annual planning produces a list of features instead of a set of strategic intents, teams lose the flexibility to respond to what they actually learn. They spend the year defending decisions made before they had enough information to make them well. When Denise Tilles and I were writing Product Operations, we looked at how Oscar Health approached this. They set direction without handcuffing their teams to premature commitments. Strategic intents at the top of the year. Quarterly check-ins to assess what teams had learned and whether the direction still made sense. The plan was a starting point, not a contract. That's the shift worth making. Planning cadences that create space for learning don't produce weaker alignment. They produce more durable alignment, because the direction can flex when the evidence does. As everyone is closing Q1, the question worth asking isn't "are we on track with the plan?" It's "is the plan still pointing at the right problem?" How does your team handle the tension between annual commitments and what you learn during the year?

We recently wrapped up usability testing for a client project. In the fast-paced environment of agency culture, the real challenge isn’t just gathering insights—it’s turning them into actionable outcomes, quickly and efficiently. Here’s how we ensured that no data was lost, priorities were clear, and progress was transparent for all stakeholders: 1️⃣ Organized Documentation: We broke the barriers— and documented on Excel sheet to categorize all observations into usability issues, enhancement ideas, and general comments. Each issue was tagged with severity (critical, high, medium, low) and frequency to highlight trends and prioritize fixes. 2️⃣ Action-Oriented Workflow: For high-severity and high-frequency issues, immediate fixes were planned to minimize potential impact. Ownership was assigned to specific team members, with timelines to ensure quick resolutions, in line with our fast-moving development cycle. 3️⃣ Client Transparency: A summarized report was shared with the client, showing the issues identified, the actions taken, and the progress made. This kept everyone aligned and built confidence in our iterative design process. Previously, I’ve never felt the level of confidence that comes from having such detailed and well-organized documentation. This documentation not only gave us clarity and streamlined our internal processes but also empowered us to communicate progress effectively to the client, reinforcing trust and showcasing the value of our iterative approach. It’s a reminder that thorough documentation isn’t just about organizing data—it’s about enabling smarter, faster decision-making. In agency culture, speed matters—but so does precision. How does your team balance the two during usability testing?

I've interviewed 50+ senior designers in the last quarter. Two alarming trends emerged: 𝟭. Portfolio paralysis: They can't showcase their best work. 𝟮. Memory fog: They struggle to recall project details from mere months ago. The result? Panic-induced all-nighters piecing together fragmented case studies. 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝟭𝟬% 𝗦𝗼𝗹𝘂𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 👇 Implement this habit now: • Dedicate 10% of your week to documenting your design journey. • That's just 4 hours for a standard work week. • The payoff? Weeks of future stress eliminated. 𝗬𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗗𝗼𝗰𝘂𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗧𝗼𝗼𝗹𝗸𝗶𝘁: 𝟭. Daily Micro-Journaling (5 minutes) • Capture key decisions • Note stakeholder feedback • Record "aha" moments 𝟮. Weekly Summaries (30 minutes) • Outline sprint accomplishments • Highlight major pivots • Archive key artifacts 𝟯. Project Milestones (1 hour) • Synthesize learnings • Curate a "greatest hits" collection • Record quantitative & qualitative impact 𝗣𝗿𝗼 𝗧𝗶𝗽: Set up a Notion template or FigJam board. Make documentation frictionless. 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗖𝗼𝗺𝗽𝗼𝘂𝗻𝗱 𝗘𝗳𝗳𝗲𝗰𝘁 👇 Imagine this: 6 months from now, you have: • 26 concise weekly summaries • 130+ daily entries • A curated showcase of your best work You're not just prepared for job hunting. You're primed for: • Promotions • Speaking engagements • Mentorship opportunities Remember: Your future self will thank you. Your future hiring manager will be impressed. Don't let your best work fade into memory. Document, curate, and shine. ----- I've posted about this issue recently & had some great feedback & conversations. 💬 ----- #design #tech #ux #productdesign #careers

Running procurement without Contract Management is like driving blindfolded. You might get somewhere, but the crash is inevitable. Contract Excellence | 11 NOV 2025 - Contract management is the process of overseeing contracts throughout their entire life cycle, from drafting, negotiation, execution, compliance monitoring to renewal, termination or closure. Procurement secured a great price...Fantastic! But without robust contract management, that "win" is fragile. Here's why: 7 Reasons Why Contract Management is Non-Negotiable for Procurement. #1. Value Protection ↳Ensures negotiated terms are delivered. ↳Prevents price creep and scope drift. #2. Risk Mitigation ↳Manages regulatory/internal compliance. ↳Ensures obligations e.g insurance are met. #3. Visibility & Control ↳Stops maverick spending dead in its tracks. ↳Provides a single source of truth for contract administration. #4. Efficiency Gains: ↳Automates renewals, approvals, and alerts. ↳Frees procurement from firefighting to focus on strategic sourcing. #5. Supplier Relationship Health ↳Enables proactive performance reviews. ↳Promotes collaborative issue resolution based on agreed terms. #6. Data-Driven Decisions ↳Provides performance and compliance data. ↳Enhance smarter sourcing strategies, supplier development, and future negotiations. #7. Unlocks Innovation ↳Facilitates clear terms and good governance. ↳Creates stable foundation for suppliers to propose innovative solutions Contract Management is a crucial bridge between negotiation & value realization. Without active contract management, even the best deals unravel: 🚫Savings promised is lost in invalidated invoices. 🚫Performance guarantees is forgotten 🚫Compliance requirements is Ignored 🚫 Renewal deadlines are missed True procurement success is measured after the ink dries. Don't let your hard-won deals vanish into a black hole. Integrate contract management deeply into your procurement lifecycle. Only way to capture and sustain the value you fought for. Neglecting Contract Management turns procurement into a transactional function! Embracing it elevates procurement to a strategic value protector and business partner. ♻️ Repost to help someone in your network. ➕️ Follow Frederick for more procurement insights. #Procurement #ContractManagement #RiskManagement #ValueCreation

Enterprise Architecture - Enabled Disaster Recovery Blueprint In today’s volatile business landscape, disaster recovery (DR) is not just a technical concern, it’s a strategic imperative. Enterprise Architecture (EA) offers a structured, holistic approach to DR planning by aligning IT assets, business processes, and governance frameworks. This note outlines a practical roadmap for leveraging EA to enhance organizational resilience, ensure operational continuity, and future-proof disaster recovery strategies across planning, implementation, governance, and communication layers. 1. Preparation and Analysis - Assess Critical Business Processes: Identify essential processes and their dependencies to prioritize recovery efforts.
 EA Artifact: Use business capability heat maps to visualize critical vs. non-critical functions. - Map IT Assets to Business Functions: Link applications, data, and infrastructure to specific business capabilities. - Analyze Dependencies: Document interdependencies between systems, applications, and data sources using architecture relationship views. - Define Recovery Objectives: Establish Recovery Time Objectives (RTOs) and Recovery Point Objectives (RPOs) for critical assets.
 Outcome: Establishes clear business impact baselines for DR planning. 2. Design and Planning - Develop Resilient Architectures: Integrate fault tolerance, redundancy, and high availability into the design.
 EA Tooling Tip: Leverage platforms like Bizzdesign or LeanIX to model resilient systems and simulate failure scenarios. - Leverage EA Frameworks: Use frameworks (e.g., TOGAF, Zachman) to align DR planning with organizational goals. - Create a DR Reference Architecture: Document a blueprint for recovery processes, technologies, and workflows.
EA Artifact: Use layered architecture diagrams to show end-to-end recovery paths. - Centralize Data Management: Use EA to standardize and centralize data storage and backup strategies. - Plan for Scalability: Ensure that the DR architecture supports growth and future needs.
 Outcome: Enables long-term sustainability of DR design as business scales. 3. Implementation - Document DR Processes: Use EA tools to create detailed workflows for disaster recovery scenarios. - Automate Recovery Steps: Implement automation for failover, backup, and restoration processes. - Use Cloud and Virtualization: Integrate cloud platforms and virtual environments for scalable DR solutions.
 EA Tooling Tip: Model hybrid architectures in Sparx EA to align on-premise and cloud-based recovery. - Integrate DR into DevOps: Ensure disaster recovery is part of the continuous integration and deployment pipeline.
 Outcome: Enables near-zero recovery delay through automation alignment with operational workflows. Continue in 1st and 2nd comments. DM for the “100-Day EA Disaster Recovery Plan” Transform Partner – Your Strategic Champion for Digital Transformation Image Source: LEADing Practice

Because what procurement does remains a mystery... The document shows a day in the life of a procurement manager: 🕰️ 8:00 AM – Morning Market Scan ↳ Checks dashboards for commodity prices, freight indices, and overnight exchange‑rate moves ↳ Why: a five‑cent jump in copper or a fuel‑surcharge spike can blow up today’s POs (purchase orders); knowing early helps you act fast 🕰️ 9:00 AM – Supplier Stand‑Up ↳ Fifteen‑minute video sync with top suppliers to confirm today’s shipments, capacity changes, and quality alerts ↳ Why: daily visibility limits surprises and allows for peace of mind, knowing parts will actually land 🕰️ 10:30 AM – Cross‑Functional Huddle ↳ Quick sit‑down with demand & supply planners to review forecast shifts, new promos, or engineering changes ↳ Why: aligning demand signals with purchase volumes prevents last‑minute expedites and angry finance emails 🕰️ 11:30 AM – Strategic Sourcing & RFQ Prep ↳ Benchmark alternate suppliers, draft RFQs, and model total‑landed‑cost scenarios ↳ Why: a live pipeline of options boosts negotiation leverage and hedges against single‑source risk 🕰️ 1:30 PM – Contract Negotiation ↳ Hammers out lead‑time guarantees and price‑escalation clauses with a key supplier ↳ Why: better terms today equal smoother S&OP cycles and healthier margins tomorrow 🕰️ 3:00 PM – Firefighting Window ↳ A port delay or force‑majeure notice drops; reroutes orders to backup suppliers, update logistics, and alert production ↳ Why: rapid pivots keep factory lines running and on time in full (OTIF) targets intact 🕰️ 4:30 PM – Data Clean‑Up & Scorecards ↳ Updates lead times, MOQ (minimum order quantity) changes, and supplier OTIF metrics in the ERP; review scorecards for under‑performers ↳ Why: clean master data is the foundation of accurate inventory planning 🕰️ 5:30 PM – Continuous‑Improvement Debrief ↳ Quick Kaizen recap with the team, including cost-saving ideas, process tweaks, lessons learned ↳ Why: small daily wins compound into big annual savings and stronger supplier partnerships Any others to add?