Is There a Gorilla on Your Project?

Have you ever been so immersed in a project that you lose sight of the bigger picture?  You’re not alone.  It is a human condition, often referred to as ‘wilful blindness’, where a continued and rigid focus on the detail in the ‘here and now’ means we are blind to the Gorilla in the room. In this article, Leonie McCrann, CEO of change and project management firm Marbral Advisory, explains all.

If you haven’t already seen it, the experiment by Chabris and Simons uses a short video where six people play basketball. Participants are asked to watch and keep a silent count of the number of passes made by the players. At some point, a person in a gorilla suit strolls through the action. However, many of the participants when asked at the end if they saw the gorilla, look completely aghast. What gorilla? They were so focused on counting the number of passes, they completely missed the gorilla wandering into the scene.   

Can You See the Gorilla in the Room?

We face similar challenges when working on complex or long-term projects. Sometimes, when you are in the detail of a project implementation, it is difficult to see where it is going wrong. You may miss some important aspects, overlook some potential risks, or make some wrong assumptions. You may also lose motivation, creativity, or enthusiasm for your project.

That is why it is valuable to have an outside perspective and a fresh pair of eyes, particularly on long running projects. Getting input from someone who is not directly involved in your project can help you to see the gorilla in the room. This is important, as the gorilla may be friend or foe, opportunity, or threat. Missing such an external influence on a project is often cited as a reason for failure or for not reaching the full potential of the project.

Dyson V Tesla

Case in point was Dyson’s project to introduce an electric car to rival that of Tesla. Just before mass production was due to begin, a fresh pair of eyes identified that the cost of the inputs would have meant a price that made the car commercially unviable. James Dyson personally absorbed the cost of the project failure but continues to work on the battery technology developed through the development phase. This shows just how valuable lessons learned from project failures can be, whatever the stage of the project. Dyson could have continued to ignore the gorilla in the room, but instead, they took the difficult decision to halt production and to reconsider the best approach to achieving the intended outcome.

Scope Creep

Quality assurance should be a consideration at the outset of any project. It is easy for groupthink to emerge on long running projects as enthusiasm for the project’s outcomes wane and other changes or issues in business as usual emerge. The tendency is to allow gradual slippage which over time can erode the benefits of the project. When key performance indicators related to the quality of the project itself are not regularly monitored, scope creep can emerge to further erode budgets and timelines. This was evident in the build of the Syndey Opera House, which due to a lack of a defined scope, and continuous scope creep went 15 times over the original budget. 

The Vital Questions

So whatever stage your project is at, ask yourself these three questions?

1.     Am I seeing the full picture right now with both internal and external threats and opportunities?

2.     Do we have agreed stages for assessing the ongoing viability of the project? 

3.     Do we have an independent, non-biased viewpoint which challenges our delivery against defined performance indicators?

Consider how best to get a fresh pair of eyes on your project. It may be that you can enlist the support of a peer internally or that you agree to specific staged quality reviews with external support. Either way, if you are beginning to see the signs of a project slipping, perhaps it’s time to stop counting the passes and look for the gorilla. 

If you require external support or a fresh pair of eyes on your project, contact Marbral Advisory today. Marbral provide project assurance and health checks to businesses and organisations across all sectors. You can find out more here.