Surely someone else can take over?

We all know we're not indispensable .... even if at times we like to think we are. Yet, so many projects are dependent on a small number of key people, doing something specialist. Yes, there are other specialists. And they're busy too.

There are experts and specialists in all sorts of fields and there are in-house specialists who know pretty much everything which goes on in the organisation.

Then, someone falls ill ... they'll be back "soon", well before the next critical bit of the project; won't they? What if they're not? What if they decided to leave?

Some time ago, I was working on a project with 11 workstreams, each with 2 or 3 specialists and with heavy day-job commitments. The workload was tough for many of them and, as project manager, I spent time helping them through this, working with some to find others to delegate work to, or to "back-fill" positions for the duration of the project.

Early on in the project, one of the key specialists nearly left, although, in the end, they stayed and some aspects of their day-job were reassigned.

The whole area reliance on key people went from hypothetical risk, to real issue. And, only at this point, did the senior management take the issue seriously, assign some proper resource to back-filling roles and removing some of the day-job. It wasn't perfect and a significant number of people worked excessive hours during that project. "Management" knew some of this although I think one or two turned a blind eye to the excessive hours and to the increase in illness amongst those staff.

I'm fairly sure a few of those who left within the following two years were at least partly as a result of feeling over-worked and under-supported, during the project. As a Project Manager, I've spent a lot of time coaching individuals, often helping them recognise when they truly need to take a break or delegate something and working with management to ensure everyone is managed well and helped to be productive and effective, working hard without burning themselves out. The nature of projects is that it's a "one-off" and however well it's planned, there will be unexpected changes, tasks which take too long and people who react unexpectedly.

Sue Cohen Ltd works with a variety of professional services firms, managing internal projects to the same degree of professionalism as the services they provide to their clients. Get in touch if you'd like to know more about how we can help manage the workloads and the staff, effectively.