Project Poster
When was the last time you actually read a project plan or charter? Try a project poster instead to define the right way to tackle a problem, the project scope, and the path to reach your goals.
PREP TIME
20m
Run TIME
90m
Persons
3-10
5-second summary
- Get clear on the problem you’re solving and possible solutions.
- Validate what you already know and what you need to find out before moving forward.
- Start putting a project plan in place that people will actually use and update over time.
WHAT YOU WILL NEED
- Meeting space or video conferencing with screen sharing.
- Digital collaboration tool (see templates).
PLAY resources
How to create a project poster
Replace boring project plans and charters with a fun alternative.
What is a project poster?
A project poster is a planning tool that helps your team think through the problem you’re trying to solve, possible solutions, and what the ideal end result will be.
Don’t take the name too literally. You don’t have to hang your project poster on the wall, but it should be easy to see, like a real-life poster.
When should you create a project poster?
Unlike project charters, project posters are living documents that your team fills out over the course of several conversations. Create a draft at the beginning of the project, and update it as you explore your problem space, challenge assumptions, validate solutions, and gather feedback.
Are project posters necessary for every project?
No. Project posters are best when you’re solving complex problems or seizing an opportunity with a lot of unknowns.
Why is it important to create project posters?
Research shows that going through the steps of creating a project poster helps:
- Make sure you’re solving the right problem
Solving the wrong problem or addressing a symptom instead of the root cause can waste time, effort, and resources. This study found that correctly identifying and formulating the problem is often more critical than the solution process. - Validate assumptions
Unidentified and unvalidated assumptions can significantly contribute to project failures. Clearly defining and validating assumptions as part of this Play can help improve decision-making, enhance communication, and minimize risk. - Increase stakeholder engagement
In this study, stakeholder engagement was highly correlated with higher stakeholder and sponsor satisfaction. Engagement was also a significant predictor of a project’s ability to stay within the budget and deliver on schedule.
1. Prep the Play
Est. time: 10 MIN
Project posters are split into three parts to support the evolution of your project:
- Problem space: Explain why solving this problem matters to your customers and to the business. Get clear on your project goals and possible solutions.
- Validation: Identify knowledge gaps and risks. What do you know, and what do you need to find out?
-
Ready to make it: Visualize the solution, and put a project plan into place.
You don’t need to complete the entire poster at once. As you work through each section, link off to other project artifacts, or note other Plays you might run, like DACI, Experience Canvas, Trade-offs, etc.
Schedule 60 minutes with your team for the first session to focus on defining the problem and setting your project goals. Collect and share relevant information in advance, like notes from user testing, analytics, customer feedback, market research, etc.
Tip: BREAK OUT
If you’re working with a large team, consider creating breakout rooms or hosting multiple sessions with smaller groups so that everyone has a chance to contribute and make their voice heard.
2. Define the problem space
Est. time: 20 MIN
Start the first session by sharing the project poster template with instructions.
Lead your team through the questions in the template, starting with the problem space: the reason the project exists. It should include just enough detail that someone outside your team can understand why you're considering this initiative and what your project goals are.
Try to reach a consensus on each section before moving on to the next. If you reach a stalemate or team members have wildly different ideas, take the time to discuss them. If you can't come to an agreement, someone from the team should take on a follow-up task to gather more information and share it with the whole team.
Ultimately, the project's full-time owner (i.e., the project manager) or executive sponsor may have to resolve differences of opinion by simply making a call on which direction to go.
Note:
You'll probably revisit your problem space several times before you're ready to execute. As feedback from sponsors and stakeholders comes in, teams often find they haven’t been asking the right questions or haven’t met customer needs. You might also find that your assumptions weren’t exactly spot-on. That’s ok!
The more feedback you can get on your problem space, the better. Ask stakeholders, higher-ups, and anyone else you think has good insights to leave comments directly in your collaborative document, such as your Confluence page. This way, you’ll have all their thoughts in one place, plus a written record to check on as you progress.
TIP: GET FEEDBACK EARLY
Share your initial poster with project sponsors as early as possible to get their feedback, which you'll incorporate in future sessions as the project develops.
3. Validation
Est. time: 20 min
Defining the problem space will force you to make assumptions that need to be validated so your team and sponsors are confident in the solution.
The answers to the “validation” questions on the poster may initially seem like a to-do list. However, as the project moves along and you record your findings here, the poster provides an overview of your validation efforts and the information you've gathered.
Your research should confirm (or disprove) the potential solution and its relative priority before you go any further. If you can't do this, you may need to revisit the problem space or brainstorm more solutions to consider.
Don't get discouraged! For massive projects, it can take weeks, or even months, to work through. As your research progresses, update this section with summaries of what you've found and links to supporting documentation.
TIP: SHARING IS CARING
After the session, share lessons learned with your team and others, and ask if they have any recent learnings too.
4. Ready to make it
Est. time: 20 min
This section will be empty when you first create the project poster, and you'll fill it in as you reach conclusions about which solution to pursue, an idealized vision of what you'll deliver, and what it'll take to deliver it.
This section is where your project plan will come into focus. Involving multiple team members with diverse skill sets in answering the "ready to make it" questions helps ensure you capture all aspects of what you'll deliver and develop a shared understanding.
This document is your project’s guiding light, so make sure everyone can see it as they get to work!
Follow-up
You may not complete the entire project poster in one session. To keep working on it, schedule follow-up sessions with your team. In future sessions, start by briefly reviewing progress and/or what's changed since the last meeting.
Also, be sure to re-group with your team after you get significant feedback from stakeholders. Depending on the size of your project, the number of project goals you have, and the number of stakeholders who provide feedback, you may need to schedule several follow-up sessions. That’s totally okay—it’s more important to get things done right than to get them done quickly.
Variations
Leadership teams
If you’re a leader, you’re working to solve broader problems with bigger project goals and longer time horizons. Once you land on an approach, more people are involved in the execution.
Leaders can create project posters that are strategic or visionary vs. more tactical. Focus on the big picture, and don’t get caught up in the details.
Leaders can also run this Play as a part of annual planning or an offsite. In that case, allow 1.5-2 hours, and do some of the research beforehand so you can build out more of your project poster during the session. You can share your poster with the entire organization as a 12-month strategy document.
Still have questions?
Start a conversation with other Atlassian Team Playbook users, get support, or provide feedback.
Other plays you may like
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OKRs
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Decision-making
DACI Decision Making Framework
Assign clear roles to ensure effective collaboration and accountability during the decision-making process.
Decision-making
Tradeoffs
Define and prioritize your project variables.
Goal-setting
Modeling Strategic Focus Areas
Build and align on your organization’s strategic focus areas.
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Filling out the “Problem Space” section for a Dashboard redesign project
Filling out the “Validation” section
Finishing a draft of the project poster by filling out the “Ready to Make It” section