Seth Godin‘s blog post today, The three toxic stooges of the project apocalypse, really resonated with me.  Seth names the three components that contribute to project failure: over promising, under sharing and lack of polish.

I cannot agree more with the first two components: over promising and under sharing or lack of communication are fatal to projects.

In my experience, people who excel at managing expectations and have strong communication skills tend to be good project managers because they minimize the chance for disappointment.

In my own career I have often been faced with the unpleasant task of bringing a team – or my boss – back to reality.  This is probably partly because I have been a part of companies that aren’t well versed in digital and social media marketing, and so the constraining resources are less obvious to those around me.

It comes back to under promising and over delivering, which is an easy way to manage expectations.  When you under promise just a bit and communicate clearly what your objectives are, your clients are more likely to have realistic expectations for their project.  It also gives you just a bit of wiggle room to impress your clients, which tends to make them happy.  And happy clients are usual return customers who are more likely to refer you new business.