by Matthew Lane, PMP, Ph.D.; Director of Client Services, Fios, Inc.
Project heroism is often celebrated. “Important Project X goes awry and the team spends crazy hours at tremendous personal and firm expense to somehow hit the mark.” Sound familiar? Though the efforts of the individuals involved should be noted, continued praise of these projects reinforces undesired outcomes. When I hear of project heroics, I wonder what went wrong. What wasn’t planned for sufficiently? Where did communications break down? What project issues were allowed to grow into big problems? Entrenched heroic behavior has large, negative human and financial impact and is symptomatic of inadequate processes and immature project management.
Instead, begin to recognize and reward boring projects. You know the ones I mean — or maybe you don’t. Boring projects — those that are well planned, executed and controlled — tend to slip by with less notice. They typically aren’t discussed on firm calls, mentioned in newsletters, or chatted about in hallways. Change this behavior now, because these are the projects you want to emulate and repeat! They are less costly, are of higher quality and feature satisfied clients (a/k/a repeat business). Below are a few suggestions for recognizing and repeating boring projects:
- Hold a detailed Lessons Learned meeting to understand and document the keys to project success
- Socialize the project success factors to key firm stakeholders
- Train the firm project management team on these factors. Identify how the behaviors can be repeated.
- Reward individuals involved in the boring projects. Begin reinforcing the correct outcomes.
- Make special efforts to communicate boring project success in firm newsletters and other internal communications opportunities
I’m interested in your input regarding boring projects versus project heroics.
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