When I first started to work in Project Management, nearly 20 years ago, I made a disastrous error. I employed a Sherman’s March approach to the project that left a path of destruction, malcontent and zero buy-in.
You would think that coordinating hundreds of deliverables across nine departments would need to be overly structured and kept to task with military precision. I couldn’t have been more wrong.
What I learned from this experience so long ago has shaped every project I have managed since then and I am happy to report with great success.
Where I went afoul and why
The software Request for Proposals (RFP) was complete and management charged me with the task of implementing it. Like a good soldier I took my orders and did just that, never taking into account how the project would affect so many people. I assumed I knew what everyone else needed.
My fatal error was walking into the first meeting and dictating to the project team a project plan that was, for all intents and purposes, already complete. What was I thinking? I look back on that moment in my career and cringe.
I had outlined it from alpha to omega. I did not allow for creativity or change and I certainly did not provide the project team the opportunity to get involved. I provided no platform for them to voice their concerns whatever.
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Let them be heard
What I learned is that I get my orders from management and THEN involve the project team and end users from the very beginning. Spending time with the end users and project team and letting them talk through their hopes and fears will make or break the success of any project.
I still prepare a detailed project plan but it is always a draft that can morph and change as the project team and end users discover how this initiative will affect them. I use the structure of my project plan as a guide - adding to it as bumps in the road are discussed and solutions are sussed out.
It is critical to let the project team and the end users be heard. Dictating a major change, as I did with Sherman’s March, never works.
Relevant flexibility is key
If you would look at one of my completed project plans, you would see that many times it is out of logical order.
This comes from organic discussion with the larger group and I memorialize it the way the team remembers it. Standard Project Management methodology and its corresponding logical order are ingrained in my frontal lobe, but I shouldn’t cling to it so tightly that I forget to listen and pivot when needed.
I learned a great deal in those first few years of working in project management, but actively listening and truly embracing the ability to pivot stand out. I am happy to report I have never employed Sherman’s March since.