Process for Handling the Dips in the Road
The majority of unexpected situations that hit a project during its execution are dips in the road to closure; a leader can certainly prepare both themselves and a process for the team, to deal with these.
As the project leader you own the solution/decision process, like any of the other project processes, and are responsible for:
- Understanding the organization’s decision culture and its implications for affecting a final solution
- Ensuring the process is viewed as fair, legitimate and transparent by the participants, in order to maintain an engaged and cohesive team, through commitment and shared understanding
- Driving the team to converge on a final solution; not personally creating the final solution and selling it to them
- Sharing with the team what the process is and the role they will play and what your role will be
- Fostering a creative environment for solution development
The bottom line is: People want to be engaged and to have their positions heard on any given issue; then, they want a choice to be made, so the team can move on.
