Page 93 - Straight Talk On Project Management IV

To be an IT Project Management brand: Consistency is king!

As an IT Project Manager, CIO or Business Analyst, do
you have a personal professional brand?

The answer is yes, by the way.

It’s inevitable. Either by default or by design, you have a
brand.

‘By design’ is the option you want, of course, and the
key to designing and maintaining a successful personal
professional brand, by design, is consistency.

So, what is a brand?

The organisation that benefits from the fabulous IT
Projects that you and your team deliver doubtlessly has a set of consistent values that define the
company’s character. A brand.

These core values, when internalised by everyone and habitually delivered by all, become the DNA
of the company.

As one brand obsessed client puts it, “It’s like a stick of Blackpool rock!”

He’s right. Snap a stick of Blackpool rock and you’ll see it has “Blackpool” running all the way
through it. This is like an effective brand. You’d know before snapping that it would say “Blackpool”
from start to finish, you’d know you could break into it anywhere and it would say “Blackpool”. Two
centimetres in, it doesn’t change to “Skegness” or “Brighton” or “Southend”. You know what you’re
getting!

In the same way that you don’t walk into McDonalds and order a healthy green leaf salad, you don’t
switch on Classic FM expecting to hear Metallica, and you don’t shop at Waitrose expecting a middle
aisle selling slippers and chainsaws side by side, your firm’s brand defines your customer’s
expectations of you.

Think of the adverts that these brands use. The imagery. The colours. The sounds. Think how
consistent the brand voice is throughout in terms of message and tone.

I mentioned McDonalds earlier, the McDonalds ‘golden arches’ - that’s the power of brand
consistency right there. It’s a yellow ‘M’! ‘Golden arches’ sounds better though so we were trained t
to believe that’s what we’re looking at and, to be honest, even writing the words makes me want a
Big Mac! It’s been the logo since the 1960s! Then there’s the “ba-da-ba-ba-ba” sonic logo that has
become an ear worm! How old do you suppose that Justin Timberlake “ba-da-ba-ba-ba - I’m Lovin’
It” messaging is? Five, ten years? No, it was first conceived in 2003! That jingle is 16 years old! That’s
how long consistency takes!