Have you ever felt stuck in a project that seems to drag on without any progress, enthusiasm, or direction? Maybe you started with a clear goal and a motivated team, but along the way, you faced challenges, delays, or changes that sapped your energy and interest. How can you stay engaged in a project that has lost momentum and still deliver quality work?
The first step to rekindle your engagement is to understand why the project lost momentum in the first place. Was it due to external factors, such as shifting requirements, budget cuts, or market changes? Or was it due to internal factors, such as poor communication, unclear roles, or conflicting priorities? By diagnosing the root cause, you can address the specific issues that are holding you back and find ways to overcome them.
Getting stuck in a project either from the internal or external factors is a natural phenomena. However, the resolution of the stuckness requires a systematic approach to rationalize the scope and costing without compromising the delivery timeline. In such scenarios, I would prefer to draw a comprehensive matrix to get a clear picture to decide what to do. And what would be the compromising cost.
This has worked in many occassions - Bring in fresh perspective, a new lead or someone who can engage with business stakeholders and do a unbiased survey of the issues. - Rotate members of the team as needed - Do a retrospective and share findings, what are the pros and cons of continuing or perhaps delivering in increments. - Do a fresh charter and kick off. Dont plan to delivery everything, deliver the absolute minimum that makes sense incrementally. Re-evaluate with key stakeholders and monitor metrics.
When something goes wrong, asking why it went wrong is good start. But don't just stop there as we may only look at the symptom. Probe further by using the 5 whys technique to eventually arrive at the key problem and solve it from there.
To my knowledge is concerned, focusing on a handful of tasks or projects that align with the organization culture , team's capabilities and that align with organization's goals helps maintain momentum. Trying to do too many tasks all at a time can easily lead to burnout and loss of focus
The next step is to remind yourself and your team of the original vision and value of the project. Why did you start it? What problem are you trying to solve? Who are you serving? How will the project benefit you, your team, your organization, or your customers? By reconnecting with the purpose and impact of the project, you can reignite your passion and motivation and see the bigger picture beyond the current challenges.
Arguably the most important tool in Software Engineering and Computer Science are a pencil and paper. Ideas can be hard to keep in the mind as we are constantly writing over old memories that we think still have. The contents on the paper or white board are a good way to keep your thoughts clearer and for longer. Writing ideas down may even improve your original idea for a project as more details are able to be circulated in an evolving project. If you have your ideas physically with you it becomes easier to motivate yourself and visualize what you want to create. Writing ideas is a simple, yet important lesson to learn as Developer or Engineer.
Retaining the vision is one of the most integral parts of staying engaged with a project. It should be something that you are reminded of every day that drives you forward. Ensuring the sustainability is best done by focusing on the user. Remind yourself of how impactful the problem you are solving was to your users, and how happy they are now that you've solved it for them.
Restarting a “failed” project can be challenging, however, if there Iis still lysufficient support within the organisation then there is still hope to restart. It just takes one positive voice within the senior leadership. In this context, it is important to create a stakeholder map to identify that promotor! Once identified, it is good practice to get everyone back around the table and review the initial vision and mission statement to update where needed to re-energize the team with purpose. Finally, remember the following motto : “fail fast to achieve results faster!”.
The third step is to break down the work into manageable and measurable tasks and set realistic and achievable milestones. Sometimes, a project can lose momentum because it is too complex, vague, or ambitious, and you don't know where to start or how to proceed. By dividing the work into smaller chunks and defining clear deliverables and deadlines, you can create a sense of progress and accomplishment and keep yourself and your team on track.
Losing momentum is a regular part of large projects. Trying to prevent it or "just power through it" is foolish. Welcome it. It's a helpful sign that something is wrong. Use the time to reevaluate the priorities. Recreate your minimum viable product. Identify bottlenecks. Discuss new obstacles and oversights and adjust accordingly.
The vision of a project can sometimes be so grande yet so vague. The team building it just doesn’t know where to start. In my experience, a first good step is to make a concrete design. It can be high level but not vague. It can just be a confluence page where you map out the most important flows (flow charts, sequence diagrams), show high level components (C4 container diagram) and include details on the tech stack. Make the page public and announce it to business stakeholders, involved architects, and other teams. The goal is not a correct design but to trigger a discussion and force concrete decisions. You end up with an aligned and concrete plan, which feels less daunting and can more easily be divided into chunks.
The fourth step is to seek feedback and support from your stakeholders, peers, mentors, or managers. Feedback can help you improve your work, validate your ideas, and identify potential risks or opportunities. Support can help you cope with stress, learn new skills, and access resources or tools. By reaching out to others, you can also build trust, collaboration, and accountability and avoid feeling isolated or overwhelmed.
I would like to share a formula that was shared by one of my favorite Authors Harv Eker. He said success is a combination of 3 steps done again and again: 1. Act 2. Feedback 3. Correct When you correct and again take action you will not make the same mistake and you will see progress. This will ensure that the project sees progress and then you can see that momentum is built because of this. The more momentum is built than team members feel motivated and work progress is seen.
The fifth step is to celebrate wins and learn from failures along the way. Celebrating wins can boost your morale, confidence, and recognition and acknowledge your efforts and achievements. Learning from failures can help you grow, adapt, and innovate and turn challenges into opportunities. By embracing both successes and setbacks, you can foster a positive and resilient mindset and culture and keep yourself and your team engaged.
One of the biggest things that we as human beings tend to always forget is to celebrate. This is because we want to concentrate on the things that are pending and we feel disheartened. So the way to break out of this is to celebrate wins and keep building momentum. Also, we need to understand that nothing major is built overnight so we need to learn from failures and keep making progress.
The final step is to reward yourself and your team for completing the project or reaching a milestone. Rewards can be tangible or intangible, such as bonuses, gifts, certificates, recognition, time off, or fun activities. Rewards can also be personal or professional, such as pursuing a new interest, taking a course, or applying for a promotion. By rewarding yourself and your team, you can show appreciation, gratitude, and satisfaction and reinforce your engagement and performance.
One of the fundamental premises of the brain is to keep moving toward pleasure and avoid pain. When we reward ourselves and also the team the motivation becomes more to achieve more and give a better output. This will keep looping back and forth to get more progress and better motivation.