From the course: Project Management for Creative Projects

Warning signs of a failing team

From the course: Project Management for Creative Projects

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Warning signs of a failing team

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- As the project manager, you need to be able to determine failure before it happens. It's obviously easy to see when something catastrophic happens, but rarely do failures just happen out of the blue. It's usually a series of mistakes and ignored warning signs. So, how do you know failure is imminent? Well, first off, I suggest you look for lack of agreement. When people are disagreeing about what the goal or the objective is, that's usually a sign that there's a problem. When everyone has a different opinion on what success looks like, they're not working towards the same goal. If people start slipping behind on deadlines, it's a warning sign. A small slippage early on means a problem is beginning to happen and you should pay attention and make corrective action right away. Hopefully your project plan has a little bit of pad in it so you can make adjustments. But thinking that people will just get caught up, or that the problem will disappear, rarely solves it. You also want to take a look for people making excuses. Excuses are a sign that people know mistakes are happening but they're looking to blame others or blame the circumstances. If you start hearing excuses, you need to take immediate corrective action, or things are only going to get worse. If you see project communication dip, that's also a sign. People stop filing their end-of-day reports, or you're not seeing records being updated. Well, it likely means that people are hiding something. Generally, you'll also see a problem if people start leaving. That sounds obvious but people forget this. If many people start quitting, or leaving the project, or getting transferred to other projects, you have a warning sign that something is wrong. Additionally, you can look for increased tensions or more frequent disagreements. If you're seeing that people are more short with each other or expressing more anger, try to get to the root of the problem. If you're hearing complaints or gossips, particularly from multiple places, it means there's a problem as well. Additionally, you may notice that the client starts asking more questions. That's because they're going to be around some of the teammates and if they hear people grumbling, or muttering under their breath, or gossiping, they're going to pick up on it and likely express their nervousness. Plus, you'll also notice that efficiency is starting to go down. If you're seeing that things are taking longer, look for the root of the problem. No one likes problems, but they naturally happen and there's an ebb and flow to all projects. If you start to see a problem, try to address it right away, and work to find a solution that communication can help with. Usually it's a misunderstanding, or people are just feeling pressure and they don't want to admit there's a problem. Do your best to get to the root of the problem and make immediate corrective action and the project will get back on track.

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