Learning Objectives
By the end of this lesson you will be able to:
- Define a Super Smart Task and explain how it differs from a SMART task
- Explain the three management imperatives that Super Smart Tasks address simultaneously
- Describe how the mid-change-cycle slump affects data migration projects and how Super Smart Tasks mitigate it
From SMART to Super Smart
Most project managers are familiar with SMART tasks - tasks that are Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Timely. SMART is about completing the task.
PDM extends this through the work of John Adair, who identified three imperatives that any good manager should keep in view:
- Complete the Task - the SMART definition of success
- Build the Individual - develop the people doing the work
- Build the Team - strengthen the working relationships on the project
A SMART task sits solely in circle 1. A Super Smart Task is designed to sit at the intersection of all three circles. It completes the task and builds individuals and builds the team.
Why This Matters in Data Migration
Data migration projects have an unusual property: they require deep cooperation from the people most disrupted by the change the project is causing.
The IT team needs business knowledge. The business provides that knowledge. But the business is simultaneously dealing with an impending system change that threatens their ways of working - and they are doing this while maintaining their day jobs.
In this context, how you structure the work of engaging the business is not a soft skill issue - it is a project design issue. Poorly designed engagement tasks make the business defensive and uncooperative. Well-designed tasks make them invested partners.
The Mid-Change-Cycle Slump
When people face significant change, their reaction follows a predictable curve. After initial awareness, there is a period of denial, followed by resistance and a slump in confidence and cooperation. Only then does the organisation move toward acceptance and ownership.
The timing is significant: this mid-cycle slump often coincides with the period of most intensive data gathering - exactly when the project team most needs business cooperation.
What the project does at this moment determines the trajectory:
Non-Super Smart approach: The project team retreats behind project scope, engages the business only when absolutely necessary, and meets defensive responses that confirm their instinct to minimise contact.
Super Smart approach: The project team recognises the slump and designs their engagement tasks to give business users ownership and recognition. Instead of being passive recipients of change, business users become active participants who are shaping the outcome.
Super Smart Tasks in Practice
Most PDM artefacts are designed as Super Smart Tasks. Examples:
Data Quality Rules (DQR): Rather than IT identifying data quality issues and asking the business to fix them, DQR meetings bring business users into a structured process where they chair the meeting, own the decisions, and receive credit for resolving issues. The task is the same; the design is different.
System Retirement Plans / Business Transformation Realisation: Rather than issuing a list of migration requirements to sign off, the project works through a one-to-one interview with the data owner that gives them space to express concerns. Those concerns are written up as requirements - turning resistance into specification.
Landscape Analysis: Rather than IT silently auditing legacy systems, the discovery of legacy data stores is done through outreach to the business - framed as “help us understand your systems” rather than “we are going to touch your data.”
In each case, the business stakeholder ends the interaction with:
- A clearer sense of what is happening and why
- A contribution on record that they control
- A relationship with the project team built on respect, not extraction
The Double Whammy
PDM’s term for the combined benefit of Super Smart Tasks is the “double whammy”: you secure better quality data and you build the business engagement that sustains the project through its difficult phases.
This is not a soft benefit. Projects with strong business engagement consistently deliver better data quality and meet their deadlines more reliably than projects that treat the business as a data source rather than a partner.
Key Takeaways
- Super Smart Tasks extend SMART tasks to simultaneously complete the task, build the individual, and build the team
- In data migration, business stakeholders are both the obstacle to engagement and the source of knowledge - Super Smart design resolves this tension
- The mid-change-cycle slump is predictable; Super Smart Tasks are designed to channel it rather than fight it
- Most PDM artefacts - DQR, BTR, LA - are explicitly designed as Super Smart Tasks
Book Reference
Practical Data Migration by Johny Morris (BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT): Chapter 2, “Golden Rules and Super Smart Tasks”.