On long haul flights, pilots, projects and people!
Long haul flights have multiple pilots in rotation to ensure the flight is navigated safely without tiring them out.
Now imagine if you had a long haul flight with just 1 or 2 pilots?
You are either chancing your luck or oblivious to a disaster waiting to happen.
It's the same with large business application projects.
A lot of clients I work with, have few key people who are either bearing bulk of the load or spread across multiple projects.
❗❗❗Common symptoms - Working crazy hours, weekends, turning up to meetings unprepared or falling behind on commitments they made.
Yet they continue persisting till a point where it is too late. Often with disastrous consequences for everyone including themselves.
If you have such people within your project, here are 5 ideas to help:
✅Conversations - 1:1 are the best. Checking in on them, listening and offering ways in which you could help work wonders. #nomagic
✅Breaks - Always a good idea to encourage them to take planned breaks (during the day, weekends, periodic)
✅Support - What support could you offer? Common excuses - There is no one who knows as much as this person OR it will take more time to train a new person etc. Sure, but not starting the process will lead you nowhere.
✅Coaching - Often these people have been told to get on and do the work. They know no better because they don't have the time to think through. By offering someone who could work with them as a coach, you can help this person explore possibilities and in that process ease the pressure on themselves and the team.
✅Prioritisation - Offer support to help them prioritise conflicting demands and assist in reducing the overwhelm.
Such people are invaluable and vulnerable. Don't set them up to fail.
What other things do you try to help? Please share in the comments below.
If you have such people within your project or organisation and need help with supporting them, I could help. Drop me a message.
Photo by Tangerine Newt on Unsplash