You work, I work

I’ve spent a lot of my career on various project teams.  I’ve been on large, multi-national deployments, handled startups getting their medical benefits for the first time, run projects entirely on my own and been part of much much larger teams.  While they were all very different, to me they all had one thing in common; the project team.

Teams were obviously composed of different people at different times and places, but all projects have some kind of team.  How that team functions is critical to the success of the project; a dysfunctioning team increases the risk of the project going poorly.  This isn’t to say a perfect team will always have a successful project, but a dysfunctional one will be at a much higher risk of failure.  

As the project manager (or really any non-SME / technical role) I tended to be close to the work, but not close enough to do a lot of it.  At times, I also have to be the one to decide if the team needs to work late or work over a weekend or a holiday.  Over time I’ve always followed a very important rule when I make those decisions ; if anyone on my team has to work extra hours, I will be right there with them.

Essentially this means that if any of my team is working a weekend (or over time) so am I.  At the very least I’m in the office with them (or online and on slack) to simply be around them.  This is incredibly important because it shifts the dynamic from “I’m telling you to give up spare time to work” to “we’re in this together to get it done”.  I’ve found this not only helps break down push-back to working extra, but it can help inspire others to volunteer to pitch in as well.

I also find this a great way to build space for myself to take on tasks I “don’t have time to do” otherwise.  This time is focused on the project my team is doing, but can be used to catch up on other aspects like improving documenting, reviewing lessons learned and updating plans.  For me, it all boils down to the team aspect of a project team.  We’re all in this together.