Strategies For Maintaining Project Alignment Over Time

When a misaligned project team succeeds, it’s an accident. Without alignment — that is, a shared understanding and commitment — team members work at cross-purposes and doom projects to failure. Unfortunately, it’s an easy trap to fall into. When project managers simply assume their team is aligned, or when they accept head-nodding and verbal confirmations as proxies for actual alignment, the risk of failure increases dramatically. When I served as a manufacturing plant manager, I put a project team together to figure out how to increase throughput on a production line. Not long after, throughput had increased by nearly 9%, but yield had decreased by nearly 4%, increasing our costs and canceling out all the gains. The words “I thought that’s what you wanted” still ring in my ears. The fact that the team had decreased overall performance was my fault. I didn’t clarify objectives to ensure a thorough understanding of acceptable trade-offs. I learned that ambiguity was always my fault and could quickly compound into further misalignment. In a world in which projects have become more emergent, project managers need to ensure alignment — not wait for a lagging indicator to reveal that the team doesn’t actually have a shared commitment and understanding. Here are five questions every project manager should periodically ask their teams to create and maintain alignment: 1. What is your understanding of the project? When you achieve shared understanding, or cognitive alignment, you reduce the unit costs of making decisions, accelerate execution, and remove unforced human error. 2. What concerns do you have? To keep the team aligned, you need to pay close attention to every form of data. Never assume that concerns will find you. Go find them. 3. How do you see your role? When team members don’t have a clear understanding of how their role contributes to the project, they get off track or disengage. Don’t assume role clarity — verify it. 4. What do you need? This question requires the individual to think through the personal, tactical, cultural, and strategic implications of any change in project requirements. 5. How would you describe your current commitment to the project? This last question gives the individual an opportunity to share their commitment as a snapshot in time, including caveats, contingencies, dependencies, concerns, and limitations.

Your Technical Skills Will Only Take You So Far This might sound like heresy—especially for my fellow Warrant Officers—but here it is: Your technical skills will only take you so far. Years ago, my supervisor asked me a question that changed everything: “What type of Warrant Officer do you want to be?” In my career field, there were two clear paths: • 𝗔𝗹, 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗧𝗲𝗰𝗵𝗻𝗶𝗰𝗮𝗹 𝗗𝗲𝗽𝘁𝗵 𝗟𝗲𝗮𝗱𝗲𝗿: the go-to expert, mastering every technical detail. • 𝗝𝗼𝗵𝗻, 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗦𝗵𝗮𝗽𝗲-𝘁𝗵𝗲-𝗙𝗼𝗿𝗰𝗲 𝗟𝗲𝗮𝗱𝗲𝗿: the one who aligned teams, strategies, and big-picture goals to accomplish missions. Even back then, I knew my answer. I didn’t just want to be a technical guru. I wanted to be the leader who shaped the force—who 𝗴𝗲𝗻𝗲𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗱 𝗮𝗹𝗶𝗴𝗻𝗺𝗲𝗻t to achieve what no individual contributor could on their own. 𝗙𝗮𝘀𝘁 𝗳𝗼𝗿𝘄𝗮𝗿𝗱 𝘁𝗼 𝘁𝗼𝗱𝗮𝘆: Alignment has been my informal leader superpower. Whether influencing stakeholders, leading complex projects, or navigating high-pressure environments, the ability to align people, priorities, and processes has been the key to success. Here’s the truth: Alignment creates momentum. ✅ Priorities become clear. ✅ Stakeholders feel invested. ✅ Execution becomes seamless. But it doesn’t happen by accident. Alignment requires intentionality, strategy, and leadership beyond the technical. Want to master alignment? Here’s how: 𝟭. 𝗦𝘁𝗮𝗿𝘁 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝘁𝗵𝗲 “𝗪𝗵𝘆.” Every mission needs clear objectives. Use tools like SMART goals or OKRs to ensure everyone understands the target. 𝟮. 𝗙𝗼𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗿 𝗢𝗽𝗲𝗻 𝗖𝗼𝗺𝗺𝘂𝗻𝗶𝗰𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻. Dialogue beats directives. Platforms like Slack or Teams help create transparency. 𝟯. 𝗨𝗻𝗱𝗲𝗿𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗬𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗦𝘁𝗮𝗸𝗲𝗵𝗼𝗹𝗱𝗲𝗿𝘀. What drives them? Use frameworks like RACI to clarify roles and keep everyone moving in sync. 𝟰. 𝗩𝗶𝘀𝘂𝗮𝗹𝗶𝘇𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗕𝗶𝗴 𝗣𝗶𝗰𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗲. Tools like Gantt charts or Lucidcharts ensure clarity and context across the team. 𝟱. 𝗙𝗼𝗹𝗹𝗼𝘄 𝗨𝗽 𝗥𝗲𝗹𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗹𝗲𝘀𝘀𝗹𝘆. Alignment isn’t a one-and-done deal. Regular check-ins ensure momentum doesn’t falter. 𝗛𝗲𝗿𝗲’𝘀 𝘄𝗵𝘆 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝗺𝗮𝘁𝘁𝗲𝗿𝘀 𝗺𝗼𝗿𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝗻 𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗿: In environments where formal authority is limited, your ability to generate alignment is your leadership edge. It’s the difference between scattered effort and mission success. Now, tell me—what’s your superpower as a leader? Let’s hear it in the comments. 👇🏾

Every company says sales and marketing are aligned...right up until pipeline misses target. Then it’s war stories and finger-pointing: - “The leads are garbage.” - “The reps aren’t following up.” - “We’re doing everything, and they’re still not closing.” That’s not alignment. That’s cohabitation. IMO alignment isn’t agreement. It’s accountability. Sitting in the same meetings? Not alignment. Agreeing on the MQL definition? Still not alignment. Real alignment looks like shared risk and shared wins. And it has to be engineered, not assumed. Here’s a few things that I've seen which helps teams stay truly aligned: 1. Start with shared OKRs, not shared dashboards. Don’t split goals: “Marketing = MQLs,” “Sales = revenue.” Build joint objectives that reflect the full journey: - Pipeline coverage - Conversion rates - Sales velocity by segment Make marketing own a revenue number. Not just lead gen. Shared targets eliminate blame. They replace “your fault” with “our forecast.” 2. Install feedback loops that don’t wait until QBRs. - Set weekly syncs between Sales and Demand Gen. - Review lead quality by persona, stage, and velocity...not just volume. - Use tools like Gong to pipe buyer objections directly into campaign messaging. Most importantly: set SLAs. If Sales flags lead quality, Marketing responds within 72 hours. No black holes. If Marketing is building campaigns in a vacuum, they’re not aligned. They’re guessing. 3. Align on the definition of “good” - together. - What does a qualified buyer actually look like? - What red flags are reps seeing early in deals? - What’s missing from form fills, content, or email follow-up that’s slowing down conversion? You’re not just aligning on lead scoring. You’re aligning on deal quality...the part no one talks about. Your personas are a hypothesis. Your sales calls are the experiment. Your feedback loop is the data pipeline. Alignment isn’t static. It’s a system. When it works, the machine hums: - Marketing runs campaigns grounded in truth, not theory. - Sales walks into better informed conversations. - Both teams point fingers at the next opportunity, not each other. tl;dr = Sales and marketing shouldn’t “get along.” They should be fused. You’re not building alignment to win Q1. You’re building it so that when things break (and they will), both teams solve the problem, not just survive the meeting.

Misaligned Teams: The One-Degree Disaster Five ships leave New York harbor together. Each is aimed just one degree apart. The difference is imperceptible. In the first few miles, they appear close - still within shouting distance. No big deal, right? But let’s say the ships are moving fast - 25 knots. After 24 hours, they’ve traveled 600 nautical miles. That one-degree difference now puts them nearly 70 miles apart. One ship may be veering toward Bermuda, while another drifts toward Newfoundland. They’re still in the Atlantic, but they’ve entered very different waters. One heads into the warm, calm Sargasso Sea. The other into the cold, choppy currents of the subpolar North Atlantic. Different climates. Different hazards. This happens with teams too. They leave the “harbor” together - same kickoff, goals, and energy. But if each team interprets the mission slightly differently, or prioritizes work through their own lens, they begin to drift. Not dramatically. Not immediately. But steadily. Soon enough, they’re solving different problems and delivering outcomes no one asked for. Alignment with business needs isn’t automatic or self-sustaining. It decays, unless you actively maintain it. Teams don’t drift because they’re careless. They drift because there’s no system to keep them aligned as the journey unfolds. Business priorities shift. Markets change. Strategies evolve. Risks materialize. Without a mechanism to realign along the way, even high-performing teams can end up off course - efficiently delivering the wrong thing. This is where the SAFe can help. SAFe doesn’t assume teams will stay aligned. It's designed for periodic realignment. PI Planning brings everyone (teams, architects, product managers, executives) into the same conversation every 8-12 weeks. Not just to make a plan, but to make a shared plan. Teams define objectives based on business priorities. Business Owners assign value. It’s a handshake between strategy and delivery. Lean Portfolio Management makes strategy flow downstream. Themes, budgets, and priorities become epics, features, and stories. Teams don’t work on pet projects; they build what the business is investing in. Inspect & Adapt events offer structured course correction. These aren't just retros - they're checkpoints. Did we deliver what we planned? Did it create the value we expected? How can we improve? Cadence and synchronization keep ships sailing in the same direction. Teams share the same iteration and PI cycles. That structure enables collaboration, integration, and fast pivots when priorities shift. No framework guarantees alignment. But SAFe anticipates drift and provides mechanisms to detect and correct it. The point is that alignment isn’t a kickoff event. It’s a continuous discipline. It’s one thing to be aligned in the harbor. It’s another to stay aligned at sea. If you're leading at scale without regular, intentional alignment mechanisms, expect your teams to drift off course.