Judit Estrin stated the following about Silicon Valley: ” What happened over the last couple of years is the Valley lost its association with being the place where you were in love with technology and innovation, and became the place where you are in love with getting rich.” This statement so often represents how we feel about projects. At the starting out of a project the project gets the necessary focus from the executive team, the project manager is highly excited and the team is motivated.
However as time goes by we lose that initial excitement and it gets replaced with tracking of money spent, changing requirements of the user audience and detriment about the deadlines we missed. And so the big picture got lost in the detail of the day.
The challenge, to kindle and protect the initial passion and purpose of a project, remains. The first step towards conquering the challenge lies in the vision of a project. Richard N Bolles writes: “The clearer the vision of what you seek, the closer you are in finding it. Without properly understanding the purpose and vision of a project, and the constant communicating of that vision to the team and all involved, the easier it is, to lose sight of it half way through.
The second step is to personalise the vision. Why does this project matter, why are you involved and how does it help you to achieve your purpose in life. Sure thing we all want money so that we can live more comfortably and so we often choose careers that can give that to us. But at some time in our lives we realise that the small things actually became the big things. We are bigger than the job we do and the salary we pocket every month, and by realising that we can achieve fulfilment in the everyday life.
Thirdly it is important to create intervals in the project life cycle where we stop, mentally get out of the project and re-evaluate. Some questions we need to ask ourselves are:
- Are we still in alignment with the goals we set out to achieve?
- Is the project still relevant, or has the environment or the needs of the users changed significantly?
- Can we do this better?
These pit stops will help us to refocus on the game plan ahead and will allow us the opportunity to confirm the vision of the project both on a business and personal level. It would keep the passion that is within our hearts for the project also in our work.
Written By: Lizette Venter
