PMI-LA Blogs

One thing I've noticed lately, especially on LinkedIn, is how often project managers talk about creating clarity.

I don't think they're wrong.

Projects need clear priorities. Teams need to know who's responsible for what. Expectations need to be understood. Without that, projects slow down, work gets duplicated, and eventually customers feel the impact.

At my day job, though, I've found myself thinking about that advice a little differently.

Not because I disagree with it.

Because I've realized there's a big difference between deciding where you want to go and actually getting there.

The Difference Between Deciding and Transitioning

A while back at my day job, our marketing team started talking about moving part of our lead routing process to our Operations team.

Everyone agreed it belonged there.

That wasn't the debate.

The debate was how to make the transition without creating more problems than we solved.

We could have handed over the entire process in one meeting.

On paper, it would've looked great. The ownership would've been clear.

In reality, every question would've landed right back with us.

Instead, we agreed to start with one type of lead. We handle several different lead types, so it felt like a manageable place to begin. Operations could learn the process, ask questions, and get comfortable before taking on more.

It also gave us room to learn.

We discovered little things we had never documented because they had simply become part of how we worked. We found edge cases that nobody had thought about until they actually happened.

By the time we started moving the next group of leads, the conversations were different.

People weren't asking, "How does this process work?"

They were asking, "What's next?"

Looking back, I realized we hadn't been solving an ownership problem.

We'd been managing a transition.

I Started Asking Different Questions

That project stuck with me because I've seen versions of it show up again and again.

Sometimes another team isn't ready yet.

Sometimes the technology isn't ready yet.

Sometimes everyone agrees on the destination, but the bridge to get there hasn't been built.

From the outside, all of those situations can look like ownership problems.

They aren't.

They just happen to look similar.

I've also noticed something else.

Once a decision gets made, it's easy for stakeholders to assume the transition is finished too.

I've caught myself reminding people that we'd agreed on the destination, but we were still working through how to get there. The ownership wasn't changing all at once for a reason. We wanted the process to stay with the new team once it moved, not bounce back every time a new question came up.

That changed the way I think about project management.

I still care about defining ownership.

I just spend more time thinking about what has to happen before ownership can actually stick.

Sometimes Clarity Takes Time

I still believe project managers create clarity.

If anything, I believe it more now than when I started my career.

I just don't think clarity always arrives the day a decision gets made.

Sometimes it arrives after people have had time to learn.

After they've worked through the questions nobody thought to ask.

After they've built enough confidence that the work truly becomes theirs.

Looking back, that's probably the part of project management I hear discussed the least.

Deciding where you want to go is important.

Helping people get there is the work.