More Projects Delivered with Less Stress – Part 2: The Practicalities

Prefer to watch rather than read?   Click here, five minutes, with captions.

Last time I went through the principles which simply let you deliver more projects with less stress.

Yes, totally true.  Read it here.

The super-short summary is that by lining them up and focusing on finishing instead of starting, you get benefits earlier which lowers stress and interruption, while also reducing switching cost.  It’s one of the key aspects of the method I call The Project Factory.™  

Here’s a picture of the principle:

I finished by saying: “I know what you’re thinking – ‘great, but that’s not how the real world works’. 

I know – I live in it too.  Which is why there’s a Part II to this article coming soon…”

Which is what you’re reading right now.

Practicality One – Demand-Based Work.

You probably don’t have the luxury of just doing projects – your job also involves responding to queries and delivering regular stuff.  I call this ‘demand-based work’ rather than ‘reactive’ to stop it having such a bad name.

Here’s the crucial point: demand-based work has to be ring-fenced.  You’re already doing this by working hours – there’s a point where you go  home.  Project work can’t be squeezed into the gaps between the demand-work, because they will always fill.  It’s like your kids and the things you love – they will eventually find them and break them.

The Red Project in the diagram, does not represent demand-based work.  It represents your next project.  The concept of the Project Factory™ is that it’s for projects.   You work on a project until you can ship it, then you go to the next.  If demand-based work comes up and it must be done (the owner of the business asks you for the latest figures for example), you take care of it, then you come back to the same project. 

That’s the key here.  If we’re working on a project, we stay on it until it is shipped.  We don’t start others.  We don’t continue with others.  We ship one. 

Practicality Two – What do I do if I’m not working on Blue?

The answer is, no, you don’t sit around idle.  But you do not bother anyone working on Blue with your own stuff.  This particularly includes any ‘pacesetter’ areas such as IT – leave them alone.

The most useful thing to do is to get the next projects, Red and Green, ready so that when we turn our attention to them, we’re ready to go.  The equivalent of untangling the extension cords – get everything ready.

Practicality Three – What’s managerial work if there’s less juggling?

Managerial work becomes the crucial decisions about what is the most valuable thing to ship next. (Note: when I say ‘managerial work’, I’m not fussed about whether the team makes these decisions as per an Agile setup, or otherwise).  And it also involves being a broker for the team to explain to stakeholders that their stuff will get to them, even though it hasn’t started yet.

Practicality Four – Where is this idea the most important in an organisation?

Generally…IT.  Why?  Because everything  is going to involve technology, they set the pace of how quickly the organisation can deliver projects, so it is crucial that these principles are adopted in that area. 

Which means, stop making IT the ones that have to sort out the order of things!  That’s a waste of their time!

Practicality Five – Does this apply to the organisation, my team, or to individuals?

The answer is…yes.  These principles apply to any given ‘system’.  Give that systems have a boundary that defines what is ‘in’ or ‘out’, you can draw this anywhere.

Practically, it can’t go any wider than the group of people that see that this stuff works.  So you might need to just start with yourself!  (Which, if you do, will make a huge difference to your delivery rate and satisfaction levels).

Practicality Six – What happens if I line up my initiatives sequentially and they won’t be done in time?

Then be thankful that you worked this out now.  Because…getting them all going at once was not going to make them magically get done sooner.  It was going to make it worse.  But now at least you can own up and let stakeholders know that you bit off more than you chew, that you are sorry, but that you can be much more confident about what will get delivered.

Practicality Seven – What if my area depends on other areas for the projects to get finished?

This is a separate thing.  We can only improve the project throughput as far as people are willing to work as one system.  If this is not the case, we ship our thing, we track that we are waiting (use a Kanban board or something), then we get on with the next project.  When that project comes back…we make a call about whether we go back to it, or complete the one now started. Either way, we communicate clearly.

The key is to make sure that the other area is crystal clear on which project you want them to complete next.  That you do not want them to get more than one thing from your area started at once.  Be that one reasonable internal customer, because everone else is just hassling them!

Longer term, put the time into positive political actions that help people see the benefits from acting as a wider system.  This, by the way, is the toughest work of all!  Often the best thing you can do is be an example of how valuable this way of working is.

The Big Question – Is this is so great, how come it’s not the automatic way of working?

The answer is many-fold, but essentially…because we’ve been set up for so long to not believe it…it requires going against the grain.

The mental shift to focus one thing until it is shipped is HUGE.  The temptation to satisfy customers by at least getting started takes an act of real courage to not give into, and instead say “I will meet your deadline…and you won’t see me for 3 months.  When we start on your thing, however, we will be on in every day until done”.

We live under an illusion that going home harried and stressed means we were more productive.  There is research that shows this is not the case, that making people work in the “finish before starting” method is tangibly more productive.  The irony is, that those in the research group didn’t believe it!

The modern world of work requires any questions of “how’s work going” to be responded to with the deep, resigned sigh and “so busy”.  To not be working in this way can give rise to an illusion of not working hard enough, leading to the sad irony that the more productive way of working is not as culturally acceptable!

Executives live in the same fear of letting down their Board or CEO.  They also feel the pressure to get everything going at once.  This, combined with a strange fear that arises in some that looking at detail would mean they are not doing their job, and that prioritising is someone else’s problem, leads to the ‘everything at once’ pressure being spread through the organisation.

So what do I do then?

First, make sure you are an example of how this way of working gets more done.  Then, it’s about positive political action so it spreads.  (Negative political action is for your own gain, positive political action involves authenticity and creating trust to advance the greater good). 

The trick here is to drop the illusion that the most people respond to facts.  While some do, most don’t.  People will respond to people they trust, and seeing how this way of working will see them fit in, be valued and be a secure member of the herd in the future.  But most of all, it’s overcoming the aversion to action that comes from the potential to be removed from whatever club they feel a apart of that’s the biggest force.

For this…either the risk needs to be lowered, or a direct appeal to courage and conviction is required.

Does all this seem a bit full on for a mere way to get more projects delivered?

It is! It’s what needed if you really need to see more projects delivered.

But just start with your team – it’s feels good to get more stuff delivered.