Creating and Surviving Difficult Projects

Introduction
Project Management is as demanding as ever but now work and life are blended into a stressful soup of endless demands. In many instances theres no such thing as being out of the office. Its with you constantly, in your smartphone, ready to demand attention. Then theres office behaviour; people racing to be the first to reply and other types who wake up in the early hours, firing off memos to appear hyper-engaged. Estimates from the Labour Force Survey in 2011 say that the main work activities attributed by respondents as causing their work-related stress, or making it worse, was work pressure, lack of managerial support and work-related violence and bullying. On average, each person suffering from this condition took 24 days off work. We need to consider coping strategies and prevention to give us a better chance of dealing with, and surviving, it. So what do we need to consider before, during and after a project to give ourselves, the team, the client and the project the best chance of success and to allow the prospect of future successes?

Project Mobilisation
You are asked to take over a project at short notice. In a perfect world someone would look for the PM with the best fit to the client, the challenge and the context. In the real world you need to get going quickly and show results. There are budget issues, it is behind schedule and the existing team would rather be somewhere else. The work may last for 3 months or 3 years and the underlying issues are not well defined and everybody is indulging in blamestorming. On the other hand, as Rahm Emmanuel, White House Chief of Staff to Barack Obama said. You never let a serious crisis go to waste it's an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before.

The Project Trajectory

The first step should be to establish your control over the project. With limited time a project brief can be used to confirm the approach and the objectives. Combine it with a mind mapping tool allows everything to be visualised and confirmed. Confidence needs to be established that a more detailed plan can be produced, when needed, but with an outline schedule, a budget estimate and an available workforce you can start. There is not much time to waste so avoid all day stakeholder

meetings unless you come up with a radical change that requires complete re-engagement with the client.

1. Create a shared perspective by speaking to as many people as you can. Collect the best ideas and play them back. 2. Create a good enough approach with review points where you can re-affirm the levels of commitment from the client and the management. 3. Review the approach with the team and then the client to get their buy in. 4. Start as soon as you can and as small as you can. Make mistakes as early as possible. If you start slowly you will make the same mistakes but in a more considered and thoughtful manner.

Mobilisation and Establishing Good Performance

Once the project is underway you need to develop relationships quickly and test the depth of trust regularly. Getting things done goes faster with trust. Expect everyone to meet your expectations and then deal with failure or disappointment later on. Do not create a risk avoidance culture that prevents people from using their initiative and encourages blame. Lack of trust indicates potential failure for the project as too much effort will be diverted from doing things to checking things. There may come a point when you need to call a halt in order to regroup or re-start the project. Below there are some indicators of trusted and non-trusted behaviour that will tell you if that point has been reached.

Stakeholder
Senior Management Account Management Team

Trusted Behaviour
Encourage escalation Informal and regular dialogue Offer assistance Involve PM in client meetings Discuss future opportunities Informal and regular dialogue Daily catch up meetings Open discussion for issues Shared responsibility Problem solving mentality Informal updates and escalations as required.

Not Trusted Behaviour

Pre-meeting meetings Micro-Management Repeat client criticism and issues Short termism in decision making Meetings only arranged to discuss issues or progress Responsible for own work Reactive, passive or disengaged mentality Daily review of activities Ignoring advice

Client

Self

Weekly highlight report Acknowledgment of issues Openness to discuss with team Confident to escalate Improvising to accelerate project Identifying opportunities.

Copying management on emails Providing scheduled updates on issues Taking time to customise the messages Trying to fix everything yourself Overreacting to issues Command and control approach with team

Maintaining Performance and Protecting Yourself

Victor Frankl observed that the people who survived the longest in a difficult situation were those who retained a sense of control over their environment, not necessarily the strongest. To remain in control you need to stay alert, engaged and resilient. The best PMs are outward focussed. They will consider the client, the team and the project but often they will neglect themselves. Over time the demands of work can affect your health and performance. Loss of control can be gradual until you are overwhelmed. Some warning signs are: Finding life a struggle; Noting that your energy levels are much lower and that you have none left at the end of the day for your family and friends; Becoming more withdrawn - not wanting to see people; Sleep disturbance; Feeling more anxious, agitated and apprehensive; Not being able to concentrate well; and Concerns being raised by your inner circle

Below are some ideas to consider during the day-to-day hassles of running the project that can keep you on top of your game and allow you to exert as much control over the situation as possible.

Attribute Suggestions
Alert Travel to work by different routes to freshen your outlook Read articles that have nothing directly to do with the project. You may get inspired. Make sure that the team members are involved in planning, issues and reviews Plan to refresh some member of the team after 3 months. Team members may have problems. Consider any changes in performance or behaviour. Take 5 minutes at the start of the day to visualise the key outcomes you want Take 5 minutes at the end of the day to compare what happened Avoid unnecessary long hours. It is not big and it is not clever. Short bursts of stress are good for you. Constant stress will harm you. Talk regularly with the account managers and share progress and escalate issues. Review your approach if there is a change in personnel or the context of the project What is your default style under stress? Are you impelled to act, talk or do nothing? Try

Engaged

Resilient

another option. Consider your sleep and diet. Bad habits are created day by day. Do an online stress check and reflect on the results (see HSE Stress Tool below) Look at email tools to analyse you online conversations it can identify patterns of behaviour. Tools like xobni or ClearContext can assist. Escalate smaller issues on a regular basis to check management support Talk through work with someone outside the project as a sounding board Keep in contact with people who can discuss similar challenges they have faced.

Easing Down and Starting Up Again

Once the project is over you should reflect whether your involvement made a positive impact on the project, the team and the client. Were you the best version of yourself at the time? Take a break of a few days before tackling the next project particularly if the last one has been a difficult experience. As Winston Churchill said Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts. There will be other projects and you can make your experience count.

Conclusion
The company has to maximise its assets in order to make a profit and keep us in employment. However, sometimes we will have work challenge that means that we may not be able to work as well as we would like. Asking for help should not be regarded as weakness and we have already seen reported in some industries that a macho culture of long hours and not sharing problems can lead to problems. Patterns of behaviour such as continuous weekend working, not using full holiday entitlement and overreacting to problems or ignoring problems should cause us to reflect on our own and others behaviour. We need to ensure that people at risk get the right support when they need it and not after poor performance or non-performance are identified as a symptom and not a cause.

Stephen Folan, stevefolan@gmail.com August 2013

References
HSE MANAGEMENT STANDARDS INDICATOR TOOL http://www.hse.gov.uk/stress/standards/pdfs/indicatortool.pdf Management Today, Feb 2013, When High Flying Executives Burn Out http://www.managementtoday.co.uk/features/1171970/when-high-flying-executives-burn-out/ Mindfulness and Hypnosis: The Power of Suggestion to Transform Experience, Michael D. Yapko The Miracle of Mindfulness, Thich Nhat Hanh Mans Search for Meaning, Victor Frankl