Nasruddin was once seen charging through village on his horse at full gallop.
“Where are you off to in such haste?” he was asked.
“I don’t really know. You’ll have to ask the horse,” he responded.
~Sufi Proverb
The High-Stakes Problem
70% of strategic initiatives fail! That’s a stark reality we often hear reported by McKinsey & Company. Meanwhile, the Standish Group’s CHAOS Report often notes that only around 31% of technology projects succeed outright. Scrum team efficiency is still only around 5-10% on average. So a huge amount of a team’s time is spent trying to figure out what they need to do. And even when they are working a solution, there’s still a high chance they’re still working on the wrong solution.
Regardless of the industry – tech, finance, healthcare, or manufacturing -leaders struggle with the same question: Why are we aren’t we getting the outcomes we expected?
Many of us have had such experiences: Halfway through development, we’re surprised by the discrepancy between our aspirations and the reality of a frustrating, chaotic, or inert situation.
From a business perspective, such situations can be costly, whether measured in cost of delay, financial loss, or human disengagement.
What many don’t realise is that a significant number of these problems are baked in from the very start.
Implications: The Cost of a Bad Start
Consider the cost of a bad start:
- Strategy-execution gap: Harvard Business Review notes that 67% of well-formulated strategies fail because of poor execution. Businesses meticulously craft strategies — yet most fall short in the actual doing. Why?
- Exponential misunderstandings: every project has problems but some problems have the potential to cause exponential harm.
- Blocked. Initiatives that go astray can stall for months, tie up resources, and cause a massive ripple effect on other strategic priorities.
- Rework alone can consume 30–50% of a product or project’s budget, according to studies published by IEEE and NASA. Fixing late-stage issues can be 5x to 100x more expensive than catching them early.
- Giving up or Burning out all add to the hidden costs. Gallup’s research consistently finds that a lack of clarity and engagement leads to higher turnover and lower productivity, further inflating the price tag for each flawed project.
In short, a poorly started project doesn’t just blow a budget. It can tarnish a company’s reputation, erode customer trust, and even destabilize high-potential teams who become disillusioned after multiple false starts.
“Ideas are worth nothing unless executed. They are just a multiplier. Execution is worth millions.” ~Derek Sivers
Inherent Problems from the Start
While every project is unique, certain themes recur across failing initiatives. In our experience, we regularly see:
- Insufficient leadership engagement: 41% of teams complain about the lack of leadership engagement. Also known as the strategy-execution gap.
- Premature starts: Teams are often prompted to “get going” as soon as possible, which means starting without explicit understanding and a reliance on assumptions.
- No shared sense-making: When teams don’t collaboratively understand the context and when they don’t have the dynamics to know how to respond to issues, even small issues spiral into major roadblocks.
- Lack of direction: As complexities arise, conflicting priorities, hidden assumptions, and lack of cohesive decision-making steer projects off-track.
- Teams not set up for success: Up to 70% of teams are considered to be dysfunctional. Even teams that start brimming with energy will lose momentum when they don’t feel supported by leadership, or lack a compelling long-term vision.
Recognize these? They can cripple even the most promising ideas, highlighting the need for a structured approach that addresses purpose, alignment, and context right from the start.
Liftoff
This is where the concept of a Liftoff comes in — a structured, facilitated, collaborative event at the start of an initiative that ensures everyone is aligned on the “our purpose,” “our context,” and “how we will work together.” It’s more than a quick kickoff meeting; it’s a facilitated and collaborative ceremony.
A Liftoff brings together time-honoured practices and includes activities such as:
- Defining and acceptance of a clear vision
- Co-creation of a mission
- Clarifying objectives
- Interactive collaboration techniques
- Principles for how to learn effectively together
- Getting-to-know-each-other activities
- Team chartering exercises
- Context mapping
How a Liftoff Helps
“For every person-hour spent on diligent and clear-headed consideration of the objectives at the start of a project, there is a savings of roughly one person-month in reduced wheel-spinning, chasing down blind rabbit-holes, and reframing.” ~Thought Leader, Master Facilitator, and Jiggler, III
1. Engaged leadership from day 1
A Liftoff brings leaders and team members together in the same room (virtual or physical). By clarifying intentions and outcomes upfront, you bridge the strategy-execution gap. Leaders engage.
2. A formal effective and ceremonial start
The two-day event gives credence to the importance of starting well: clarifying intentions and chartering our team. It creates the open space to clarify now, rather than later. It avoids rushing in the wrong direction.
3. A space for shared sense-making
To work together the team needs to be aligned. They need to have a shared understanding of our context, of what’s relevant, and how we respond together as a team in the face of high-stakes decisions.
4. Direction + mitigating potential mid-air collisions
By dedicating time to surface potential risks and conflicts up front, the Liftoff helps teams handle issues at the cheapest and least disruptive point: the beginning. This directly tackles the rework problem that can inflate costs by 5x–100x if left unchecked.
5. Setting up the teams for sustained long term high performance
Ultimately, it is the team that overcomes the inevitable friction, obstacles, and disorder — but only if it has the ability to respond and momentum to continue. A Liftoff sets a team up for success.
6. Measurable Impact: ROI and Metrics
It’s natural and justifiable that leaders and investors need hard numbers or credible indicators to see Liftoff as a worthwhile investment:
- Lower Rework Costs: Eliminating unclear requirements and conflicting objectives early can slash rework budgets by 15–25%, according to various studies (IEEE, NASA).
- Project Success Rates: According to PMI’s Pulse of the Profession, organizations with mature starting ceremonies and alignment processes significantly reduce project failure rates, often improving on-time, on-budget metrics by 20–30%.
- Faster Time-to-Market: Cross-functional collaboration and early risk mitigation accelerate delivery. The DevOps Research & Assessment (DORA) reports show aligned teams can improve lead time by up to 2–3x.
- Higher Employee Engagement: Gallup finds that engaged teams can boost productivity by up to 20–30%. A clear purpose and trust-building from the start fosters that engagement.
- Better Customer Satisfaction: Fewer defects, fewer delays, and a more cohesive end product lead to higher Net Promoter Scores (NPS) and customer retention.
In real terms, taking reduced wheel-spinning alone, we can calculate that a Liftoff immediately saves $50-100,000 in project costs straight away (assuming the size of a typical agile team). This usually translates as being able to create more value in that time.
The Prevention Paradox: Value in What You Don’t See
One challenge in proving the value of any preventative measure — like air travel regulations, cybersecurity, or a thorough project Liftoff — is that the best outcomes are what don’t happen. We are rarely able to measure how many crashes were averted or how many compliance violations never came to pass.
This Prevention Paradox highlights that while we can quantify certain benefits (increased efficiency, reduced rework, improved team health), some of the greatest wins — avoiding mid-air collisions and catastrophic project failures — remain invisible by design. In other words, you pay now to ensure you don’t pay exponentially more later.
Lifting Off
Every project or initiative carries risk, but it doesn’t have to be a gamble. A Liftoff done right is a strategic investment that lays the groundwork for success by:
- Bringing leadership and the team together
- Giving the team dedicated time to clarify and plan together
- Understanding each other and the context
- Defining a direction towards valuable opportunities and avoiding risks
- Generating sufficient energy as a high performing team to … Lift Off!
Now is the time to shift from a reactive to a proactive approach. By embracing a structured, facilitated Liftoff, you stand to save hundreds of hours, thousands (or even millions) of dollars, and innumerable shocks and headaches down the road.
Ready to Launch?
Schedule a 30-minute exploratory call to discuss your intentions.
When you invest in starting well, you invest in success. So before your next high-stakes project takes flight, consider a Liftoff that makes your journey as smooth — and profitable — as possible.