Have you ever…

• Delivered a project on time for an impossible schedule – but it was, shall we say, somewhat imperfect – and your management was not pleased
• Thought you knew what was important to finish and were unpleasantly surprised by information you *should* have had during the project but learned about after the fact
• Lost sight of exactly what you needed to build while fighting the inevitable project fires
• Lost confidence while a tough project hit bump after bump, or
• Hired someone to do something for you and had the result not match the picture in your head?

I've run into every one of these at some point and now work hard to avoid them!

The secret to dodging these kinds of problems with any project is to uncover the big picture including goals, drivers, and expectations.  Ideally this happens before work starts, but any time before the end of the project is useful.  (They're all uncovered at the end of the project and it's not always a happy event.)

What does this mythical big picture look like?  I'm glad you asked.  Basically, it outlines these critical aspects at a high level:

• What:  What does the end result look like?
• When:  Are there either hard and fast dates to be met or a goal/target date?
• How:  Who will make this happen and how much can we spend on it?
• How Good:  Just how important is the attention of detail, especially compared to the other project/product aspects?

And then there's the question of Who - as in who decides these things?  The bottom line is that the project sponsor - the person writing the check - gets to make the final decision.  From a practical standpoint, though, all the stakeholders (anyone with skin in the game) need to get together and hammer out this big picture.  That's the meeting where all the expectations are laid out on the table.

If it's a personal project, you're probably the only person who needs to work on this - but if you're hiring someone to do the work (for example a kitchen remodel) you'll need to communicate it clearly to that someone (ie, the contractor).  Typically it's in the best interest of whoever is running the project to get everyone together and drive this home (so if you're a project manager, this is your show).

Once the big picture is drawn, it's just a matter of keeping it in front of everyone so no one forgets over time or while mired in the details of the project.  That way, when the project comes to a close everyone knows exactly what to expect and much happiness results.

A great way to put together the big picture in a simple, easy to understand way is using the 4 Dials technique.