What does resilience mean for project teams?
From the The Money Files Blog
by Elizabeth Harrin
A blog that looks at all aspects of project and program finances from budgets, estimating and accounting to getting a pay rise and managing contracts.
Written by Elizabeth Harrin from RebelsGuideToPM.com.
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We hear a lot about how projects and people should be resilient, but what does it really mean? I think of it like being a tree – there’s that quote about bending with the wind and not breaking, but how does that translate to your work life? I think resilience is something that we talk about a lot but find difficult to turn into actionable insights, and I’m all about actionable insights! So I did some thinking about resilience and have a few things to say on the subject.
Let’s start my new mini-series on this topic with an overview of what it actually is and what resilience looks like in project teams.
What is team resilience?
Resilience refers to a team’s ability to adapt, recover, and grow stronger in response to adversity, stress, or change. And on projects, we see a lot of stress, adversity and change, right?
If you work in a project team, resilience involves the collective ability to maintain focus, adapt strategies, and work collaboratively when facing obstacles.
OK, so that’s a definition. But we’re not much closer to knowing how that shows up in the way teams behave.
Characteristics of resilient teams
Here’s what I think resilient teams demonstrate.
- Adaptability: The ability to shift strategies or tactics when unexpected challenges arise, managing change.
- Collaboration: People support one another and work together effectively, especially under pressure.
- Optimism: Team members have a positive outlook that they bring to problem-solving, even when there are big challenges ahead.
- Persistence: The team shows determination to stay on course and get things done even if there are setbacks.
- Emotional regulation: People in the team (especially the project manager) have the ability to manage stress and stay calm in high-pressure situations, like audits, project reviews or dealing with issues.
All those characteristics are things that I think project managers show, perhaps more than other roles in the business, because we are exposed to challenges, stress and changes all the time. All. The. Time. Even on projects that are ‘easy’!
Whether it’s tight deadlines, changing client demands, unforeseen risks, your budget being cut by 10% or a staff member going off sick… there are challenges every week with delivering projects. Working on improving the characteristics of resilience means your team is going to be more likely to overcome these challenges while maintaining morale and productivity.
If that wasn’t benefit enough, resilient teams are also more likely to be innovative (because they have to be creative to get out of sticky situations). Resilience helps improve long-term project outcomes, because we can learn from failures and refine processes over time – that’s the ‘bouncing back’ bit.
They’re more capable of dealing with ambiguity and complexity because they’ve got the mental agility to manage when things aren’t linear.
As an aside, when I started out in project management, I assumed things would be linear, and mostly my projects were. But as I’ve grown into my career, I’ve worked on more and more projects where we don’t have the ability to see into the future, the end is not clear… we’re flying the plane while we build it. And that ability to sit with ambiguity and just get on with what you can is something that’s been useful for me.
So, we can conclude that resilience is an important skill and we know what it looks like in project teams. Next time, I’ll talk about some practical things you can do for your team to help them have every chance of being resilient when the work gets tough.
Posted on: July 15, 2025 09:00 AM |
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Comments (4)
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Love these! I think another quality of resilient teams is trust and mutual support -- similar to collaboration, but with an element of psychological safety to try new things or make mistakes.
Ayman Tamim
Executive Manager| El Moez Maritime
Cairo, Egypt
Hello,
Your article is quite interesting and helpful.
As long as you will continue with series I you consider ways to build resilience
among team members, also when I choose members for a certain project what is the characteristics I need to be considered.
For your example about uncertainties about projects planning I am totally agree with you.
Totally agree on staying calm under pressure. Teams notice that more than any tool or process, we bring in.
Kwiyuh Michael Wepngong
Community Champion
Financial Management Specialist | US Peace Corps
Yaounde, Centre, Cameroon
Adaptability and collaboration as characteristics of resilient is quite a good combination. Thanks for this
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