Project Pressure Cooker

I was teaching a friend's MBA class last week. We were talking about How I.T. Adds Business Value and discussed some lessons learned during big system implementations. One of the students asked a question relating to "celebrating wins".

It was a great question.

Big system implementations can be extremely stressful - especially on those within the core team. Deadlines loom, thousands of decisions must be made, unexpected problems always crop up. The pace of work quickens and the pace can last for months. Big projects (to use a football analogy) can feel like a year long "2 minute drill".

Regardless, the team needs to soldier on.

To maintain sanity, it's critical to "chunk the project". Divide it into milestones. Celebrate the accomplishments. Reduce stress. Recognize achievements.

The celebrations don't have to be huge events or expensive outings.

Take the team bowling one afternoon. Let them all go early on a Friday to spend some time with their families. Celebrate $1 hotdog night at the local ballpark. Have a potluck lunch. Hand out tickets for a local play. Take them to the county fair. Find ways they can spend time away from the project and better yet, more time with their families.

Occasionally, stress relief doesn't come from celebrations, it comes from flexibility. Sometimes you just need time away from the office. We allowed people who needed to concentrate on executing a task to work from home - away from the constant din of a common project workspace. We utilized IM (instant messaging) to keep remote workers accessible.

There are literally thousands of ways to help keep the team functioning at a high level.

You need to treat your project team differently because they're in a different situation. Resist the temptation to listen to the critics (those outside the project) who lament the "perks" that the project team receive. Those critics usually fail to notice the 12 hour days and the weekend work that is necessary to keep big projects on track. Very few would volunteer for the "perks" if they truly understood the project workload.

And above all, "install pressure values". Make it everyone's responsibility to be vigilant - to look for signs of stress and address them before they begin to affect the health of the individual or the team.

Win or lose, you're all in this together.