There are a lot of projects that start at the beginning of the new year. And just like a fresh year gives a fresh start it’s easy to bring the same energy into that project plan. You’ve had a few days off, the calendar is still okay with space, and you just have a few minor things to close off from the last year. Sounds great.
Even though I’ve been through this phase for several years now I tend to go into my ordinary traps for planning a project for the year. We are bound to make the same mistakes if we don’t change things. Maybe you’re already doing these, otherwise, you’ll thank yourself for taking them into account already at this point.
Find the weeks that will provide zero productivity
Scratch these already now. Every company has them. In Sweden, you can forget about July and August due to summer vacations. I always try to keep June free as well due to the many school endings, red days, and the fact that people’s minds are everywhere but on my project.
It’s not that there aren’t working days in June, but everybody has things they want to close before summer and there’s always something delayed. In Italy you have august and in the US you have them around thanksgiving and Christmas. Plan instead deadlines one week before these non-productivity phases. That brings your project top priority and you get people’s attention when they are productive.
People can only think two weeks ahead
You will have the whole year nicely planned and a helicopter view of the project quite soon from now. Things might change but you’ll have the big strokes very clear. And you’ll expect everyone else to also have this view in front of them also. But in reality, you’ll be quite alone with this view. Even if you remind everyone of the big picture. A colleague of mine said something wise: “Emma, it’s my experience that people can only see two weeks ahead.” And yes. It’s so true.
So don’t forget to send the “two weeks deadline”-reminders already now. You can make them automatically on some systems, send a calendar booking of just 15 min or set a reminder to yourself that you need to send out reminders during the year. Anyhow, plan for people’s attention, don’t expect it when they are stressed later on.
Plan your vacation
Yes really. Do it. Now. Because it’s too easy as a project manager to say that “I’ll take my vacation in x period, then it’ll be no production anyway in my projects”. It will never happen. With things being delayed, other people asking for help, or just your own brains wiring of responsibility. You will not be on vacation if you’re not planning for it.
And now is the time to do it, because now you can rearrange all activities and deadlines instead of feeling stressed or bad for taking the time off later on when everything is on roll. Get it on your calendar. Now. Prepare the auto-response email. Now.
A year goes fast
In relation to both bullets above, with everything that also takes up people’s lives, a year goes very quickly by. “We’ll be ready in Q1 with X” but no one realizes that Q1 sort of starts in the middle of January, February is the shortest month of the year and most families are home from work with sick kids in half of March. “We’ll be ready by midsummer”. It’s something comforting of looking that far ahead and that we’ll be ready. But we can’t grasp that timeline. So don’t accept anything until you’ve met with the team and got all activities into people’s calendars to that specific scope in the weeks that actually will be productive.
After that. Send out all big kick-offs, meet up after summer, and full group workshops to people now. Because you might be alone in actually getting the spots you want with everyone this time of year.
