Project Management is a funny old profession. We’re expected to lead our projects, guide the team toward success & influence successful outcomes. And yet, so much of what happens on a project is outside of our control.
Projects go wrong. Suppliers fail, scope changes & people leave projects taking their knowledge & memory with them. You cannot plan the surprises out of a project. They will happen regardless. What matters is not whether changes happen, but whether you can build a team that is ready to tackle those challenges when they arrive.
In an ever changing world, resilience is an increasingly important trait in any good project team. And resilience is not about staying silent: keeping calm & carrying on. Real resilience is a team that can take a shock, recover & keep performing…and that is built into the project infrastructure – how the project is set up, what processes it can fall back on & the psychological safety a team has to overcome challenge.
The problem with soft skills like resilience is it is not something that you can necessarily define. You know when your team are resilient, and you know when they’re not…but there is no clear audit that you can do to test this. The only real test is when hard times hit.
So as a Project Manager, how can you influence your team’s resilience? Here are a few tips
- Make it safe to speak up early – When people feel safe to speak up, you end up problem solving ahead of risks becoming issues, rather than reacting when a problem is already being realised. If a team know that they can raise something that has been worrying them, then you can do something about it. But create an environment where raising issues is linked to perceived poor performance & you will end up with nasty unknowns & surprises. Google's Project Aristotle found psychological safety was the biggest factor in team effectiveness. Create psychological safety in your team so that your unknown unknowns become known unknowns.
- Remove any single points of failure – Single points of failure can break a team’s resilience. If an entire team’s performance can be taken down by one bad thing happening then you need to do something about it. Brainstorm contingency plans, share knowledge early & make the risks known.
- Don’t let optimism bias get the better of you – Optimism bias is when we think that something will work out, simply because we want it to. And whilst this can be a wonderful thing, it can also be hugely detrimental to team morale when things don’t go to plan. So plan this in - include buffers, float & honest estimates into your project. Every project needs a little slack here & there, make sure you plan it in for them.
- Normalise asking for help - the strongest teams I have led in 15 years of construction were the ones where people could speak up & ask for help when they were struggling. Often, those that are struggling don’t speak up. Instead, they go quiet on our projects, start missing deadlines & turn in poor quality work. All this can lead to misinterpretation & frustration. Instead, if you build an environment where people can speak up & ask for help, then that gap can be plugged to keep the project marching on
- Allow your team to rest in quiet times – every project has the occasional quiet time. When one disaster has been avoided, or things are just simply moving along. When you can, don’t be afraid to take your foot off the gas & allow your team to recover. Those quieter moments will help them get rested & recovered so they are more willing & able to work hard when the next difficult problem hits. And remember, your team watches what you do, not what you say. You need to rest in these moments too.
Resilience is a hard thing to talk about as a Project Manager. Because it is not something that is easy to define - it is simply an environment you build. But building resilient teams is an essential part of what all great PM’s do. Use the 5 tips above to build resilience in your team so that when the next issue hits, you are all ready to deal with it.