Surviving a Business Project
In a perfect world, any business team assembled to take on a
project would be a competent group of professionals who
seamlessly act as one entity. In the real world, it's a bit
different. A good team tends to be made up of strong, creative,
energetic and insightful members. That's the perfect recipe for
egos, personalities and methods to clash. People tend to act in
their own best interests and play the blame game regardless of
the outcome. Here are some ideas that will help you and your
team keep their eyes on the prize:
1. Keep A Log
Keeping a daily log will help you maintain contact with sources
that prove valuable, learn from mistakes and develop a winning
methodology. When it comes to the good, take note of that great
idea, suggestion, shortcut or contact that helped bring it all
home. When it comes to the bad, take note of any major problems,
missed deadlines, bad numbers and the parties most responsible
for those negatives. You may also want to write down your
feelings as you progress through each task. This will provide
emotional hindsight and give you some insight into how intuitive
you may be. Being intuitive is less about possessing some sort
of psychic ability and more about having a talent for being able
to predict the probable outcome of a situation based on what you
see happening at any given time. Intuition can be extremely
helpful to a team when choosing a direction becomes convoluted
by group disagreements.
2. Don't Revisit Every Decision
We live in a day when junk psychology and television
psychiatrists have us going in reverse, mentally speaking.
Instead of carefully considering their next move, people tend to
waste time revisiting every decision they have ever made or
reliving every experience or emotion they have ever had. A good
project plan eliminates the need for second-guessing.
3. Make An Honest List of Your Strengths
It's wise for individual members to give serious thought to the
part they can best play in the group plan before the first team
meeting. When that first meeting does occur, you should be ready
to cite instances where your talents and experience at a
particular task have paid off and lead to the successful
completion of previous projects. That may help you get assigned
to tasks you feel most comfortable working on.
4. Intangibles: They Can Turn Into Tangibles
Every project involves things that we do not expect or see
coming. It's those kinds of intangibles that can trip you up as
they turn into tangibles. Anyone who has been in the business
world for more then five minutes knows how delicate the process
can be. Contractors show up to do a job, but have nothing to
work with. A electricity brown out occurs just as you are ready
to begin an important presentation. One or one hundred things
can happen during a project to disrupt or slow things down.
Developing alternative resources in advance can really save the
day when push comes to shove.
5. Deadlines: Keep One Eye On A Deadline and The Other On Quality
Most companies live and die on deadlines. However, good
companies and business leaders know that sometimes a deadline
must be sacrificed in favor of quality over substance. Just
having a finished project is not always a good thing is it means
that the end result is substandard or will reflect on the
company or team in a negative way. Every team leader and member
should keep one eye on the deadline and the other on quality.
6. Learn From Your Mistakes
People and project teams that are set in their ways tend to make
the same mistakes over and over again. If you are part of that
kind of mess and know better, don't be afraid to have your
objection on the record when you see the team headed in a
direction that has proven disastrous on previous occasions.
Moving forward in a positive way means being willing to try new
directions instead of getting mired in flawed ideas that haven't
worked well in the past.
7. Be Systematic, But Flexible
When it comes to successfully completing a business project,
sticking to the plan is an essential. That kind of systematic
approach keeps all the team members on track and working from
the same playbook. However, there are times when a plan simply
doesn't anticipate the unexpected. A Team leader and members
most be willing to take a chance and bend the rules,
occasionally, to get the job done.
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8. Reign In The Personalities, Be Consistently Good
Most college graduates suffer from Professoritis. They take on
the personality, mannerisms or management style of an Educator
they admired while in school. This can be very bad news for
co-workers because the style they have adopted is usually a
harsh and unforgiving one. They tend to wear themselves and
everyone else out. That makes it almost impossible for a team
that must work together on a regular basis to function properly.
Being consistently good means having the ability to manage and
control yourself and your team. That includes gaining and
retaining the respect of your peers. Someone with an
over-bearing personality or completely out of control ego will
always be a divisive force on any team.
9. Project Echoes: The Post-Project Meeting
Most team members are so glad to see a project completed that
they rarely conduct a post-project meeting for fear it will turn
into a blame fest. It doesn't have to be that way. A productive
post-project meeting should explore the positives of what
happened during the process. It's an opportunity to make a short
list of new directions, shortcuts, resources and ideas that
contributed to the success of a project. If a project failed to
meet expectations, that's a matter for another day.
Surviving a project is all about professional etiquette and
skill. It you do not have the skill necessary to be a productive
part of any business team, blaming others or creating division
among members will not help your cause. If you do possess the
skills needed to help bring a project home, you also have the
responsibility to work with other team members in and productive
and civil way. Those willing to work with instead of against
team members are often the voices of reason within a group. It's
those people who end up reaping the most rewards.
About the author:
Author: Bill Knell Author's Email: billknell@cox.net Author's
Website: http://www.billknell.com Word count : 1082 Terms To Use
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