This is my 100th post on this site and I was racking my brain trying to come up with a monumental topic…but I couldn’t. Then last night I was at our church service and the sermon was about refueling and re-engergizing and this thought came to me. It’s not monumental, but I hope it’s helpful in some way.

Many of us manage long, multi-phase projects all the time or from time to time. And many of us manage projects with remote resources who rarely or never see each other. So...what happens when a project runs for months on end with a lot of ‘heads down’ hardcore work happening? How do we as project managers keep both ourselves and our team members from becoming burned out or from losing focus on the end goals of the project?

Let’s look at a few actions that can be taken to possibly limit the impacts of burnout and isolation on a long-term project.

Recreation

I’ve led projects where some of the resources never meet in person ever for the duration of the project. It’s unfortunate, but it happens and it can’t be helped. However, if you have the opportunity to get everyone together – either for the beginning of one of the phases of the project or at a company meeting during the project – make a point to go out as a team and do something fun and non-work related. Get management approval for the budget – do whatever you have to do – but it’s a great team-building activity and it helps give all team members a different and more personal perspective of the other members of the team.

Motivation for the team

Remember, some of them have only heard you – the PM – speak by phone and read your emails and most of the time it’s telling them what needs to be done and when it needs to be done. Stepping outside of that position to get to know everyone in a different way will help to re-engergize everyone going forward.

One thought - as the PM, and with budget approval, of course, is to try doing something fun and creative that can help build team spirit; for example, come up with a team name and logo and print them on custom t-shirts.  The whole process will get everybody's creative juices flowing and help everybody relax and work together more easily.  I've done this for generating interest in events that I've put on such as small golf tournaments, etc. with great success.

Recognize

Recognition is a great motivator and a nice way to let the team know that their work is appreciated. If done right, it can also be a great way to let the entire organization know about the accomplishments of your team. One project I was leading performing an enterprise-wide software installation for a leading industrial supply company was broken out into three separate phases. At the end of each phase, once deployment had been accomplished and the implemented modules were up and running, I put out a ‘press release’ to everyone in the company recognizing the successful efforts of the team and the satisfaction of the customer. I wrote it, but it ultimately was distributed by one of our VPs so it would carry even more weight. If you want a copy of one, contact me and I’ll try to locate a sample to send you.

Reward

Look for ways to reward your team members for jobs well done. On a very successful project or phase, this should probably be for everyone on the team. For individual efforts that go above and beyond the normal call of duty, it’s fine to reward individual team members. Get this ok’d through management, and give them gift certificates or gift cards to restaurants, Best Buy, Barnes & Noble, Starbucks, or similar venues that are pretty mainstream and frequented by nearly everyone at some time or another.

I realize this one has been practiced for years, but it works and it’s a nice thing to do for outstanding efforts exhibited, for example, by a team lead performing a long software configuration effort or a data specialist solo-ing a very difficult data load that had to be accomplished by ‘x’ date.

Summary

Your project resources are critical and without them there could be no success. Even if you as the PM aren’t getting much recognition – and that’s often the case – don’t let that pass on to your team members. They are YOUR resources and their success is your success. Try hard to recognize pending burnout and mitigate it with some sort of action. Getting the team together for an activity, recognizing the team’s efforts in print to others, and rewarding outstanding efforts are a start. I’m sure there are other ways – and if you have suggestions I’d appreciate hearing them.