Ok, so, this was a long time ago and I was in a very immature projects environment (both in my own career and in an organisation that didnât know how to do projects, at all, much less well). So, understand that when I tell you about this…
On one of my first projects, I was doing some early research about the project idea. I told my boss, âbased on my calculations, I will need five people to help me do this projectâ. His eyes almost lit up as he asked, âis that it?â. âYes,â I confirmed. He practically paraded five people in front of me right there and then and introduced me to the five people who were going to help me âdo this projectâ. You might see what came next. But at the time, I honestly didnât.
Unbeknownst to me, those five people were internally referred to as the âAâ team. Not because they brought their âAâ game to every project they worked on. In fact, they werenât currently working on any projects. They were the âAâ team, because they were âAvailableâ. No one else wanted them. In the end, it was faster and better quality for me to do nearly the whole thing on my own, rather than involving them. And believe me I tried. I really, really tried. (Remember, back then I was quite a novice Project Manager myself. Now-a-days, I have a lot more tools in my tool box to motivate teams and help team members grow, progress and achieve.)
As for lessons, unlike many others throughout my career, this experience only took one time to learn. After that project, I never just asked for a number of people again. My focus changed to skill sets. I now always ask for skill sets. For example, âI need five people, three with x skill set and two with y skill set. If they donât exist in-house, we should contemplate hiring them in or upskill internals in order to this projectâ. What a difference this has made!
What early lesson(s) have you learned that you still take with you on to all your projects?
************************************************************************************************
Click here to receive 50% off Terrapin Agrada’s AMAZING Project Management online training.
************************************************************************************************
Leave a Reply