Question 1: What is a WOW! Project, and what makes some projects WOW! and others not?

Answer: WOW! Project is a project that is very high impact for a customer or an organization. It is the type of project that you will still be bragging and chortling about 10 years from now. It is the type of project that is right near the top of your resume and you can't wait to tell everyone about it at your next professional meeting. It's a project that really matters to patients, their families, to physicians or to the health of the community. It defines who you really are as a person, a professional and as a leader. Choose a project that really counts for something. Make the project really sing about you, that defines you and is imbued with soul and with life. You are tying to create something that will be remembered many years from now and will give you years of pride and enjoyment.

Question 2: How should I select the project and should I share the idea with others?

Answer: Innovation is a contact sport! The best ideas for projects come from some crazy people thinking differently and sharing some weird ideas and unconventional approaches to your ideas. Projects should have a definite beginning and end timeline (this ain't no committee!) and can be completed in around 90 days. Pick an idea that you can champion for a WOW! Project that has a high degree of failure as this will provide you with an opportunity to readjust, reframe and redesign as you go.

Question 3: What will be the likely outcome of my WOW! Project?

Answer: Of course spectacular successes are way better than failures, but the point of choosing your first project is to make it memorable and to stretch your thinking, expand your circle of mavericks, freaks, and strange partners, and to move you into some unfamiliar and at times, uncomfortable territory. It is better to have a spectacular failure in pursuit of a really neat project than to have a boring mediocre success in something that is trivial and doesn't really matter.

Some Obvious Dont's In Choosing Your WOW! Project:

• Don't choose something easy and that you are already working on or have almost completed.
  
  
• Don't select a project that takes 1-2 years to compete. Break it up into 90-120 day chunks.
  
  
• Don't select something unimportant and low impact.
  
  
• Don't select something that is so familiar and you are already the most knowledgeable.
  
  
• Don't share the leadership of the same project with anyone else, but rather build your own network, project team, and resources.