Learn What Your Teams Need to Succeed

Recently I heard a coworker use the phrase, “a lack of planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part.”

I definitely resonated with this idea the first time I heard it, because I love planning and I love good boundaries. But over time I’ve come to realize its merit is mixed.

On the positive side, people who say this are expressing a problem, trying to set good boundaries, and indicating what a part of the solution might be (better planning). Furthermore, some urgency is false, and not everything that feels like an emergency should be treated like one.

But the idea has a few shortcomings. For one, it creates a defensive environment among teams and coworkers who need to work together. The messenger of the “emergency” may not have had the knowledge or ability to prevent it. A defensive response does not create a fertile pathway to future improvements.

Secondly, letting “emergency” projects die at the door of the person or team expressing this sentiment is not a real solution for a company. A company needs to deliver its highest-value projects and initiatives, not just its best-planned ones.

While an individual person or a whole team might express this sentiment, let’s assume for our purposes that a whole team is saying it, or a leader is saying it on behalf of their team. Nearly everything I’m about to say still applies if you’re only dealing with one individual.

That being said, it’s understandable that a team might make this statement out of exasperation. But there’s something more helpful a team constantly having to deliver results under emergency conditions could do: communicate their needs in specific, actionable terms.

And this is where you come in, project manager. Because whether or not the team takes the initiative to communicate their needs, you can take the initiative to learn them and then communicate and defend them (kindly) to others.

How do you do this?

First, interview the team. You may get better answers one-on-one or in a group: one-on-one interviews risk getting you conflicting information; a group interview risks becoming a complain-fest, so choose the route you think is the lower risk for the particular people you’re dealing with. Ask questions along the lines of the following:

1. “What work requests are commonly made of you, and what project tasks are commonly assigned to you? List as many as you can think of.” As the project manager, you can help by bringing a list of the ones you know about.
2. “How long do you need to complete each task on the list without feeling rushed?” If your company tracks time, get the number of hours or days that need to be dedicated solely to the task. If not, your question should sound more like, “How long do you typically need to fit this type of task in around your other normal work?”
3. “What information, assets, or other resources do you need in order to start each task?”

Second, design a plan to share the needs you’ve learned about. This typically includes two parts:

1. An initial communication to make people generally aware of the team’s needs.
2. A system for you and anybody who can contribute to meeting the team’s needs to be reminded of those needs at the right time.

The initial general communication may or may not be necessary, depending on how many people will need to make changes and how drastic those changes are. But if you do this step, it could look like a post on the company portal, an email to those affected, or a brief mention at a company town hall. The point is to get people thinking about it so when they encounter it on a real project, it’s not the first time they’ve heard the information, and they’ll get with the new program faster.

But the second part—preparing for just-in-time reminders—is the critical piece. Part of how I do this is by making sure I incorporate the new data into project templates in our project management software. I make this team’s tasks the appropriate length of time. I create predecessor tasks for others to get this team the info or resources they need on time, and I’m prepared to push this team’s tasks later if the materials aren’t ready for them on schedule. If you don’t have project management software, find a place to make yourself reminder notes somewhere you typically look when you’re drafting project schedules.

Another way I do this is by communicating the team’s needs in project meetings, in whatever ways are specifically relevant to the project. I do so in very positive terms, for example: “We’ve just learned that the finance team needs reports A, B, and C in order to create composite report X, and they typically need a week to get it done amid their other work without getting stressed out. We like the finance team and we want their jobs to be sustainable! So that’s why our projected completion date for the project will be Y.”

If needed, another way I might ensure meeting the team’s needs becomes normal is by having a weekly reminder for myself to assess their work and make adjustments, or I might even have a weekly meeting with the team for awhile where I get updates on where our new system isn’t working so I can fine-tune things.

In many cases, even a team who makes an effort to communicate their needs to others in specific terms will have limits on their success. They might communicate a need once, but it is project managers or PMO staff who are typically in a position to create the timely reminders and structural elements far enough upstream in the project process so that adequate “planning” of the type the team hopes for will actually happen.

So keep your ears open. You have a tremendous ability to prevent emergencies and stressed-out teams by proactively learning their needs and creating systems to be reminded of those needs at the right moment.