7 Project habits worth re-starting this year
Categories:
Career Development
Categories: Career Development
| January is here, and with it the pressure to plan the year and Do All The Things. In my view, January work doesn’t need a radical reinvention. Sometimes it’s about returning to what already works, and I’m sure there are some habits you know you should be doing but have stopped being so proactive about. This is your reminder that maybe this time of year it’s all about doing what works instead of trying to do something big. Here are 7 things you probably used to do and maybe don’t focus on so much anymore because the pressure of Q4 got in the way.
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Writing things down properly (not just holding them in your head)
The role of leadership in fostering a resilient team culture
Categories:
resilience
Categories: resilience
 I’ve written a few articles now on resilience because I think it’s really important. Now is the time of year when it feels like we’ve just got to keep on pushing until year end, and those projects get over the line before the year closes out. At the same time, I know that ‘just pushing through’ isn’t the best approach for wellbeing and mental health, so there’s definitely a balance. Resilience is how you help yourself (and others) get through the tough times. As a project leader, it’s important that we understand how much resilience plays into the success of a team, and what we can do to influence it. Here are a few things that we can do as leaders – even if you don’t have a traditional leadership-y job or staff working for you. Lead by exampleLeaders set the tone for the team. By demonstrating resilience yourself (which looks like having a positive attitude, perseverance, and being adaptable) you can inspire their teams to do the same. And I’m not talking big inspirational speeches, or people applauding your work in the corridor. It’s small-scale inspiration, tenacity and showing your professional values – those things rub off on the people around you.Provide emotional support and guidanceYour organisation might have mental health first aiders, or wellbeing champions or other people in a role that means they’ve had some support and training about how to support their colleagues. So I’m not suggesting you take on any role that you are not comfortable with or trained to do. This is more about emotional intelligence and being able to notice when things are ‘off’.Leaders should be tuned into to the emotional needs of their teams, offering support during tough times. ‘Support’ might look like knowing when to take a break, inviting everyone to the canteen to eat together, celebrating small wins or taking someone aside to check in and see if they are OK. Providing regular feedback, coaching and mentoring (when invited to) can also help team members stay focused and motivated. Empower teams to take ownershipThis works both ways – firstly it empowers teams to make decisions and solve problems on their own, which builds confidence and ownership in the project. And secondly, it takes work off of you, and I’m sure you are busy enough not to need extra decisions or troubleshooting to do.Trust them to manage the challenges, and be there in the background if needed. Encourage open communicationThis one is a bit of theme, I know I’ve spoken and written about it before. Transparency is important for helping teams stay connected. They are more likely to raise issues, talk to you about the risks they see or flag other areas of concern.When they feel like it’s a safe space to voice their concerns (and hopefully solutions), that brings a sense of collective responsibility for overcoming challenges because you can work on making things better together. Building resilient project teams is a given for any modern leader – it’s just something that we have to do, especially as there is so much going on inside and outside of the workplace at the moment, all of which can feel pretty heavy at times. Project managers might not have direct reports, but you can foster a culture of adaptability, collaboration, and support, guiding colleagues where it helps to do so, and stepping back where it’s more appropriate to let them lead the way. In fact, that sounds like servant leadership, and a resilient leader would certainly take that approach when the time (and the team) are right. A resilient team is ready to get that project over the line, whether you’re counting down to a year end deadline or looking to deliver at another point in the year. |
5 Ways to Spark Creativity During the Darkest Months
| Here in the northern hemisphere the evenings seem to be starting earlier and earlier, and the mornings are much darker. I don't know about you, but I do certainly start to feel less inclined to bounce into work when the sky is grey and it feels like I'm not spending any time in daylight. On reflection, I think I'm most creative during the lighter months because I can go for a walk in nature. I can have the windows open, I feel like there's an abundance of fresh air and space for thinking. Somehow, being wrapped in my warmest clothes and sitting in my shed/office wearing fingerless gloves doesn't quite give me the same conducive environment for creativity. If you are feeling the same, here are 5 suggestions that I am going to try to help me feel more creative and to inspire some creativity in my team.
What about hosting a 30-minute brainstorming sessions on process improvements? You could take part of your regular team meeting to pick a process and talk about the kinds of things that work and don't work and what you would like to do differently.
Turn “someday” ideas into real experiments. I have a very long To Do List of ideas that I keep in my personal project management software and it's about time I clear them out so that I either take action on one or two or delete some things. You could do the same at work with your development backlog. The other thing I'm going to try to do along the same lines is to revisit my pile of books that I have not read and pick something that I'm going to start reading. This year I've read a lot less management and leadership books and a lot more fiction and while I love fiction, I do still need to stretch my horizons by challenging myself with new ideas.
Try an online course or skills swap. Perhaps your organisation has online courses that you can take or access to a subscription service where you can work through online training materials. I know that learning online is not quite as good as meeting up and having the whole in-person experience but it is a fast and simple way to take yourself out of the day-to-day and into a new world of skills and put your brain to use. If online training isn't your thing, consider signing up to attend a webinar or go to a conference.
Move meetings outdoors (warn people so they can wrap up warm!), or just change your virtual background for fun.
Use retrospectives for deep learning, not just quick check-ins. How could you re purpose these sessions so that you get to the bottom of a real problem? Use tools like the 5 Whys to dig deep into one particular problem instead of skimming over everything quickly and highlighting lots of issues. Maybe offer to run a retrospective for another project manager or another team so that you can see if their challenges are the same as yours. It might be harder to kickstart creativity during the winter months, but your creative skills are still there. You just have to create the opportunity for them to shine. |
6 Ways to Keep Momentum When Everyone’s in Holiday Mode
| In the Northern hemisphere, we’re going into hibernation mode. The weather might be getting colder but the deadlines are hotting up as we approach year end. It’s always the same: leadership teams trying to get projects done before the end of the year, often for no real reason other than it’s an arbitrary date and it lets everyone start fresh in January. However, if your financial year finishes in December, there could be good reason for trying to get everything done.
At this time of year there are also other distractions: people taking time off for holidays and the festivities. Here are 6 practical strategies that you can start using on your project to finish the year strong.
Map out who’s away and adjust your project timelines early. One of the problems I have found on projects is that I am not always told who will be on holiday because the individuals working on the project do not directly report to me. Check in with their line managers or ask each individual directly about their plans to be away over the holiday season.
Literally. Stop adding features or deliverables! When you get change requests, put them on the back burner until the new year. That will protect the capacity in the team in order to complete the work that you already have in your work stack.
Get critical tasks done before festive chaos hits. Even if you are not expecting chaos, you could still be caught off guard by key stakeholders being out of the office or decisions taking longer because decision makers are not around. Try to get decisions documented and agreed as early as possible so that your team is not held up.
Prep notes, shared docs, and checklists. If you have anything to hand over this season, make sure you're doing the prep work for it now. That also means making sure your project filing and archiving is up to date. Saved down any attachments from emails tidy up your SharePoint channels and make sure everyone is using the document storage the way that it should be used.
Bring in treats or plan some virtual thank-yous for the team. This year my project team is celebrating in November because December is too busy and it's hard to get people to have the opportunity to meet up. If that feels like it will be the same for your team, consider moving any festive celebrations earlier in the year or pushing them to January. January often has the benefit of being cheaper as well!
Schedule a January reset meeting before everyone disappears. Whether that is a lessons learned from a project before you will forget what happened, project scoping or a quarter one planning session, book the time now before all those recurring meetings start dropping into calendars. While you are at it, set up your steering meetings, any other governance meetings, regular project team meetings and anything else that needs to be in the diary on a recurring basis so that your team project sessions have protected time as you go into the new year. What else do you do at this time of year that helps you keep everything on track to end the year in a good place? |
Why is my data wrong?
| I know we’d all like to rely on our PowerBI or Tableau reports, or whatever data source you use for tracking business metrics, but those reports are only as good as the data that goes into them. That goes for our project management tools as well. If you’re looking at a resource chart trying to work out how to manage capacity over the coming weeks, you’d better be looking at the right inputs. When the underlying data is wrong, it can throw off your scheduling. But why is data wrong in the first place? No one goes into work and knowingly types in incorrect figures just to make your day difficult. If you’re worried about the integrity of the data, or you want to do an audit check, or even just highlight the importance of getting it right to your team, here are some places you can look.
Human errorLet’s start with the most obvious: Incorrect data input by project team members can lead to inaccuracies in schedules, budgets, and resource allocation. Manual errors in data processing causes more headaches, in my opinion, than anything else. While we’re on the topic of how humans type things in, let’s talk about inconsistent data formatting. Without standardised data entry methods, inconsistencies such as different date formats or unit measurements can impact data integrity. Software ErrorsHow much downtime does your project management tool, or any other data repository that you use, have? How often do you have to raise tickets? I heard about one team who had been successfully navigating around a bug in the system they used, and talked about how they were managing as if it was a badge of honour – don’t do that! Raise a ticket with the right support team and get it fixed. You never know what kind of impact a bug is having behind the scenes. Even the best project management software may experience a glitch from time to time that could mean you lose data or it gets corrupted. This can happen when you are syncing data or updating project information, for example importing a spreadsheet from one system to another. Sometimes we also see issues where multiple users are trying to access or modify the same document or data set where version control hasn't been used. That gives you multiple versions of the same information and no one knows which is the correct one. External factorsSometimes it's factors beyond your control that cause problems with data. If you have a network failure, for example, and you're in the middle of doing a data sync, that might affect the inputs. Even hardware failures, the blue screen of death, or losing a USB stick can cause problems (not that you store anything on external drives, right?). Data integrationIn my experience, one of the biggest issues with making sure your data is correct across all systems is how the interfaces work. If you are building interfaces between various systems you have to make sure that the testing is adequate. Whether you are integrating your project management software with financial planning software or a resource management tool or whether you are taking project data out of a scheduling system and putting it somewhere else, it has to be accurate. Another issue is where the data is being exported from one system in one format and needs to be in a different format for another system —this is particularly relevant with dates. Identify which system is the single source of the truth and make sure the integrity of that is maintained. What other issues do you have with data integrity and how do you get round them? |
