I marked three projects done. They weren't.

Me: “How's the script writer working for you?”

Sales manager: “What script writer?”

That's a conversation I had with the fourth sales manager we've hired at MSP Sales Partners.

The script writer is an AI tool I built for that role. We fractionally manage salespeople for MSPs, and we're responsible for a lot of their results. I don't want four managers writing scripts four completely different ways. I want every client's script built for them, but based on the same underlying structure and what I know to be true about how to sell.

So I reverse-engineered years of writing outbound scripts to hone in on the variables that change from client to client. We put those into a form, created examples, built a template, and I hired a contractor to wire it all together with some intelligent AI behind it.

I ran a bunch of tests and got a solid output. I was proud of it, and as a “project,” I marked it done.

By the time our fourth sales manager started, we weren't using it. The person it was built for didn't even know the damn thing existed.

Last quarter we redid client onboarding because it had been a little rocky for new customers. The new process matched what we'd whiteboarded, so by our definition it was done.

About 3 weeks later, I was speaking at an event and ran into a couple people who'd recently onboarded. They were loving a lot of what we were doing, but also told me the onboarding was a little rocky.

My first thought: “Didn't we just effing redo this?”

We also made financial structure a quarterly project. We're growing, hiring, and making investments in the business. We needed budgeting, forecasting, and reporting that could support those decisions.

We completed every task assigned and, according to the definition of done we'd established at the beginning, the project was complete.

Then I went to make the two biggest hires I'd made in this business so far. I wanted to know what they'd do to cash flow over the next 90–180 days, and I didn't have a report that could answer the question.

I was part of defining what “done” looked like on all three projects, and all three met that definition.

But there was a huge gap between what we said was “finished” and that project having an actual impact in the business.

Years ago, Asana used to send a little unicorn across your screen when you completed a task. It felt good to watch something disappear from the list. Close the loop. Move on.

On the surface, that's a good thing. GSD, right? Getting shit done.

The problem is that you can work your way down a list, meet every requirement, and end up with a project that sits on a shelf adding little to no value to the business.

It doesn’t mean anyone is trying to game the system. Every task meets the technical definition, so you feel good and move on to the next thing.

And sometimes you’re doing it to yourself. You spend days building something the business needs, keep finding one more thing to add, and never get it into anyone’s hands.

Either way, the time and money are spent. The business is still waiting for the value.

Do that week after week, month after month, and it feels like the business is moving forward.

Then you find yourself with projects stacking up on the shelf unused, or redoing things you've already done.

Our most important project this past quarter has been rebuilding our fractional sales management program for SDRs. It’s the only quarterly project anyone in the company has.

It's built on an audit of more than 100 SDRs and everything we've learned so far. It also includes improving onboarding and implementing the script writer (again).

Before we call any of it complete, I shared those three examples with the team and told them we were changing the definition of done.

A spec sheet in a Google Doc is a forecast. It’s a necessary exercise to sit down and predict what done is going to look like before we get started.

But we won’t anticipate every blocker. We still have to put the work in front of the person it was built for, see whether it does the job, and address what gets in the way.

So going forward, done in this business means good and being used by the person it was built for.

Good means it does the job we built it to do.

The onboarding process has to work for the customer going through it. The financial reporting has to help us make the decisions it was built to support. The script writer has to produce scripts we're confident putting in front of a customer.

Being used means it's made its way into the actual work of the person or team it was intended to help.

The person it was built for has to:

That person may be an internal customer. A sales manager. Someone in operations. Me.

But if they're not using it, there's still a blocker. Maybe nobody explained how it works. Maybe it doesn't fit their workflow. Maybe the output isn't good enough.

Whatever it is, clearing that blocker is part of the project.

My script writer hadn't made it past the first step. The contractor was paid. My hours were spent. The product was good. But the value we built it for depended on a sales manager actually using it to write a script.

For the script writer, that means a sales manager can take a real client’s inputs, produce a script we’re confident in, and put it to work. That’s what we need to verify before we close the project.

Pull up the last few projects you marked done.

The quarterly rock. The reporting dashboard nobody opens. The latest CRM, PSA, or marketing system you spent days vibe coding.

And while you’re at it, look at the ones you still intend to ship. The tool that needs “just one more feature” before anyone can use it.

Go to the people those projects were built for.

Is it doing the job you built it to do? Are you actually using it? Did it accomplish the intended outcome?

Those answers will tell you more than the completed task list.

And on the next project, agree on what good and being used will look like before anyone starts building. Make that part of the definition from the beginning.

How you define done decides whether everything you invested produces anything useful.

Adios,

Ray

P.S. Forward this to whoever owns your next big project. It's a useful conversation to have before the work starts.