Have you ever asked someone in your project team to do a task and know that they aren’t going to get round to it, however enthusiastic they sound at the time? Your team sounds distracted. It happens to most projects – the brilliantly committed team suddenly starts to spend less and less time on your work.
In this article we’ll find out why that happens and what you can do about it.
What causes a team to switch off?
In their book, A Practical Guide To Dealing With Difficult Stakeholders, Jake Holloway, David Bryde and Roger Joby conclude that there are two main reasons why a team gets distracted. These are:
· They have other day-to-day responsibilities
· They are already thinking about their next project.
Let’s look at those and what you can do about them.
Dealing with a team with other responsibilities
When your team only works on your project part-time you are going to face competing priorities. I have plenty of experience of this and it isn’t easy because you are reliant on someone else to manage their task priorities (that might be the individual themselves). Here are some strategies highlighted by the authors to deal with this, plus some tips of my own.
1. Help them prioritize their time
Nobody I’ve ever met has asked for more work than they can realistically manage, so if your team member is stretched, it’s unlikely to be their fault. You could just pile the pressure on and stress how important your project is, but that’s only going to put them in an untenable situation as you can bet that their other stakeholders/project managers are doing the same thing.
Take some time to sit with them and work out what their task list is. Help them understand how to prioritize their work and to establish what’s important and what’s urgent. Understand where your project fits in that big picture so you can manage your own expectations as well.
If you spot a huge conflict, advise them on how best to approach their team manager (this is a great tip from the book), even if that’s to the detriment of your project. The point of the exercise is to work out what you can expect them to commit and then that will help with…
2. Build assumptions into your schedule
You can reschedule based on what you know about their availability and the priorities of their other work. You can also make this really clear in the project’s assumptions.
The purpose of having assumptions related to your schedule is to make sure that your Project Board and senior stakeholders fully understand the basis on which you are planning. If someone is then not available because they are committed to another project, you can’t use them on your work and your project slips. If your Project Board doesn’t agree with the individual’s task priorities, they can escalate this with the relevant line manager. That might buy you more of their time, and you can reschedule accordingly.
Dealing with a team focusing forward
When your team is focused on the future and not the present, you’ve got a number of options to bring them back to the project at hand.
You’re likely to be dealing with this issue towards the end of a project, as your project work is wrapping up and their thoughts to turn what is coming next. They might even have started doing the odd task here and there for their next project while that’s in the early stages of getting going.
First, stay focused yourself. If you start looking forward at the next thing then this project will never get finished. Or if you do finish it, the handover to the operational team will be rubbish and some of the deliverables might be a bit ropy if the quality slips towards the end. Once your motivation is back up, work on what you can do to help your team stay focused.
1. Talk to your stakeholders
Part of the problem with a distracted team comes from other people asking your team members to do other tasks. It’s unlikely to be the individuals themselves going off and seeking new work (although that does happen). When you get the inevitable requests for someone to join an early project mindmapping session, say no. The requests are typically phrased something like, “It’s only a couple of hours.” The problem is that a couple of hours a meeting normally turns into them picking up actions from the meeting and then getting invited along to the next session.
It’s within your power to say that their current project work is more important, so use that power where you can, alongside your professional judgement.
2. Motivate your team
Another potential solution to the team losing focus is for you to redouble your motivational efforts to make sure that they stay with the project. Reiterate why the project is important. Provide incentives if you can, or gamify the last few steps so that it’s a fun place to be. Talk about the future and how you’ll help them transition to their new work when this is done, but for now, this is the priority (of course, only do that if you are prepared to help them transition). Discuss how a successfully completed project reflects well on them and their career.
You know your team better than me (or the authors of the book) so think about what sort of motivational tactics will work to keep your team engaged until the end.
3. Plan for the project’s close
You should already have built a clear project plan that highlights your resourcing requirements for the project, and if you haven’t now is the time to sort that out. It should point out where the need for an individual drops from 100% to less than that.
Talk about that drop off point with each person on the team, highlighting when they will become available for other work and what you expect from them in the run up to that. Set expectations and then meet them.
All of these tips are really about sorting out your priorities and those of the team. With clear priorities everyone can plan their own time and their project work. Have you set your priorities yet?