What business schools should have taught me about project management
This morning Amanda and I had a meeting with a client. Our mission is to optimize visually their website and social media. We exposed a framework for their landing page. Unfortunately, we misunderstood the client needs.
In schools
Teachers teach us to defend our project. The final thesis presentation is called in Belgium: La Défense! We try mainly to save our grads. It looks like,
- Yes but …
- According to the stats, this way seems the best …
- Actually, you didn’t teach us this subject. So how could I…
In the business world
It’s different. Unfortunately for us, we discovered it today. We shouldn’t defend our vision against their vision. They are the clients of course, they are right! Next time we would focus the conversation on their message that we seemingly misunderstood. Then we would prepare together a plan to adapt as soon as possible. It’s a co-creation process.
Imagine we transpose this in the educational system.
Why not co-creation with teachers? They are always the judges and never co-creators.
We didn’t lose the client, but it was a tough meeting…
