Things Beyond Technology in Project Execution
Recently, I’ve been working on a project at the company. Unlike before, in this project, I’m sort of in a role similar to a project manager (but I’m not actually a project manager). Stepping into this new role, I’ve realized that to successfully complete a project, having great technology alone is far from enough.
I’d like to record my recent feelings, mainly in the following aspects: thorough communication, expectation management, coordinating colleague relationships, task allocation, and advanced planning.
Now, I’ll record each aspect separately.
Thorough Communication
This is actually a topic that has been talked about countless times by numerous people, but I still want to jot it down because I’ve had quite a deep feeling about it in this recent project.
In the early stage of this project, I was the key member. Most of the work relied on me to complete, and subsequent work was also highly dependent on what I did. So, at the beginning, other team members needed me to provide a clear timeline. After breaking down the tasks, I gave a timeline based on my own estimation. However, problems started cropping up one after another.
I’m an impatient person, and the second half of this project was what really attracted me. So, I wanted to finish the previous work as soon as possible. Naturally, when giving the timeline, I tried to compress the time as much as possible according to my own thinking, aiming for the fastest possible completion. When I presented the time, no one else asked in detail, and everyone seemed happy. But when it came to the delivery time, problems emerged. After I implemented it, other colleagues were to conduct tests. In my mind, as long as the main functions were completed, for some details, they could be refined while testing, which could maximize time savings. But the testing colleagues thought I was delivering something with complete functions and comprehensive configurations. That is to say, our assumptions about the delivery standards were different. It’s easy to imagine how much conflict this would cause.
This was one problem, and there was another rather serious one.
About half of our team members were in the United States, and we were collaborating remotely with a 13 - hour time difference.
In the early stage of the project, most of the workload was on my side. Others had to wait for me to finish before they could start. Due to the above - mentioned problem, the original timeline was postponed. Since it was postponed, I definitely wanted to finish as soon as possible. But unexpectedly, the documentation of one important component was really bad. Many key steps were missing, or they were wrong, and there were even two bugs. This caused me to be unable to complete all the development and configuration for a long time, delaying about 20 days compared to the original plan. During these 20 days, a lot of “conflicts” occurred (actually, they weren’t really conflicts, just a bit of unhappiness, not to the extent of real conflicts).
Due to the remote collaboration and time - zone issues, the colleagues in the United States didn’t know what I was doing every day. All they saw was: Oh, he still hasn’t finished today! But I was extremely busy on my end. With such emotions on both sides, it’s easy to imagine what would happen during meetings.
Given that these two problems seriously affected the emotions and progress of the project members, I had a chat with my leader. The leader gave two simple yet effective suggestions:
- Re - communicate the delivery standards to ensure that everyone has the same understanding.
- Find a suitable time every day to update everyone in the team, especially the colleagues in the United States, on today’s progress, what has been done, what problems have been encountered, and what kind of help is needed.
After I followed the leader’s suggestions, the atmosphere within the team improved significantly. Moreover, the colleagues in the United States also provided me with some help and support to a certain extent, and the efficiency was much higher than before.
Communication is extremely important in a project. Sometimes, it’s even more important than implementation. Without good communication as a foundation, things might get worse and worse. Communication has different techniques in different scenarios. It’s really a subject worthy of further study.
Expectation Management
Expectation management is also a frequently - discussed topic.
When this topic is mentioned, most people probably understand it, but actually achieving it in a project is not that easy.
As mentioned before, the second half of this project was what attracted me, so I wanted to finish the previous part as soon as possible. Thus, when giving the timeline, I estimated based on the best - case scenario, thinking that even if some problems occurred, I could overcome them. But in actual work, unexpected situations often happen. So, when estimating the time, some time should be reserved for these unexpected situations.
If you don’t complete the work by the time you promised, no matter what, it will be seen as your problem in others’ eyes. But if you can finish ahead of schedule, others may think you’re quite capable.
More importantly, if you keep failing to fulfill your promises on time, over time, you’ll lose others’ trust. This is a very serious issue that could potentially make it difficult for you to survive in the company.
Coordinating Colleague Relationships
Generally speaking, a project can’t be completed by one person alone. It usually requires teamwork. At this time, the relationships among colleagues in the team are very important.
Because of the problems I encountered in this project, I read the book “The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership” by John C. Maxwell. John mentioned a point in the book: As a leader, one should understand everyone in the team, even including their growth experiences, family situations, etc., because these will all affect a person’s performance in the team. A leader should first create a harmonious team atmosphere and relationships, which is the foundation of cooperation.
Relating to the actual situation in the project, if I hadn’t obtained suggestions from the leader in a timely manner and implemented them, the relationships among us might have become more and more tense. In such an atmosphere, I think it would be very difficult to collaborate well.
Actually, even now, the team atmosphere and relationships are still far from what I expected. I hope I can improve this situation in the coming period.
Task Allocation
When allocating different tasks to different people in the team, it’s not just as simple as allocating according to a person’s technical stack (which I used to think).
Allocating tasks from the perspective of the technical stack is a good approach, but we also need to consider other factors. Personally, I think the main aspects are as follows:
- Personal Interest
If a task can be assigned to someone who is interested in it, even if their technology doesn’t quite match, it might still be a good choice. After all, interest is the best teacher. - Team Member Growth
If a person is always assigned tasks related to their familiar technical stack, over time, their technical stack will become narrower, which is not beneficial to the growth of both the individual and the team. - Primary and Backup
For a relatively important task, it’s better to have two people who can take it on, with a primary and backup arrangement, to avoid complete reliance on one person.
Advanced Planning
I also read about this topic in the book “The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership” by John C. Maxwell. I thought it made a lot of sense and had a deep feeling about it, so I’m recording it here.
The book mentions that a qualified leader must, ahead of other team members, point out the direction for the team’s future work and make a relatively detailed plan or put forward a clear goal.
In our project, although the early - stage work was very arduous, it was actually the basic part. The work that can truly reflect the value of this project is in the second half. But this part of the work was unprecedented, not only for our team but for the entire department. At this time, if we want the project to succeed, we need to make an advance plan for this part of the work to lead other colleagues forward.
This sounds easy, but it’s actually very difficult to do. Because when facing a new field, no one has experience, and it’s hard to make an accurate and executable plan. In this regard, I haven’t found a good method yet. I hope I can make some progress in this aspect through this project.