(Re)Tell the Project Story
January 13th, 2004 by HalI am advising some university students on their senior project. They've decided to create some project tools for managing projects. I'll tell you more as their project develops. I was asked today to offer some initial comments. So here it is:
Start telling the story of the project.
I've found most project managers don't know where to begin. I've offered pointers for this before. Here it is again [Story-Telling Reforms the Project],
What is there to tell? Tell the stories of ambition, achievement, satisfaction, worthwhileness, and determination. Tell the stories of cooperation, collaboration, learning, and resilience. Tell the stories that unite, bond, and build trust. Tell the stories that dispel, focus, invite, and encourage. Tell the up-coming story of accomplishment. Just tell stories. It is the one avenue available everyday for reshaping the collection of individual realities into a collective reality.
But the real issue is not including all the 'right' elements. The issue is giving yourself the permission to tell the story without knowing how it will come out. That's right. Start telling before you know how it will all work. Stories are made up. They are not true. They'll never be true, especially the stories we tell before the fact. The power in telling the story is in setting a context for others to carry out their roles, learn, improvise, and innovate. Further power comes from inviting others to contribute to the story and its unfolding.
I'll leave you with this, [Declare the 'Game' of the Project]
The project leader's role is to keep the game of the project from sliding into the background by restating the promise to the customer, reminding people of the role they are playing, and re-telling the story of the project.
So, get in the habit of telling and re-telling your story. The success of your project depends on it.
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January 15th, 2004 at 1:34 am
One of the most important story lines to include are those of the heroic quests. I don’t just mean individual achievements (although those are certainly an important part of the story). I mean the collective challenges that pose the opportunities for us to come together to do what others said (or we thought) couldn’t be done. These story lines must include a real sense of the difficulty, frustration, and even despair that forge the bonds of real community.
When we retell our stories, punctuating our experiences as triumphs over real human adversity, we prepare ourselves well for the next challenge and remind ourselves why we will dive into the next project — knowing as we do that it too will include troughs as well as peak experiences!
January 15th, 2004 at 2:27 am
Amy,
That is so well-stated. :+: Of course we can’t know all our challenges, but we do know that projects — collective acts of creation — always involve challenges. Whether we anticipate them or not, talking about them will raise our collective spirit and produce a reservoir or energy for addressing whatever challenge does occur.
Thanks so much for your comment. I look forward to your participation on the teleconference with David Schmaltz on Jan. 22nd.