Page 112 - Straight Talk On Project Management IV

It makes sense before you can learn from your mistakes, you have to accept your responsibility for
them, your role in the outcome, the level at which you were at fault. This can be uncomfortable, but
until you are at peace with saying, “Doh! Well, I made a mess of that,” you can’t be ready to change.
2 - Ask Yourself The Toughest Questions

Taking time to reflect on what went wrong is one of the most productive and therapeutic things you
can do after a project fail or misstep. You don’t want to dwell on the negatives but when you ask
great questions you emerge with a new clarity that you can take forward.

What went wrong?

What did I learn?
Was there a defining moment or action that caused this?

What single action could I have taken, and when, that could have prevented this?

What will I do better next time?
Make sure you journal your responses – remember no one else has to see this so BE HONEST. When
you write down your answers to these questions you will be able to see things more objectively and
react more logically in a measured, rational way.
And here’s the thing, I said that no one else has to see this but sharing your findings with your team
can boost trust in you as a leader and help you to internalise the lessons you have learned.

3 - Create A Brilliant Action Plan
So, we’ve agreed not to dwell on the mistakes, but after that period of positive introspection we just
discussed you’ll have the beginnings of an action plan.

The majority of your kintsugi for project managers repair should be focussed on how you can do
better in the future.
Put simply, you now need to make a plan to prevent you making a similar mistake in the future. Be
specific and detailed, and plan in some flexibility as your next project won’t be a copy/paste of the
last one.
Most importantly, find a way to hold yourself accountable! A trusted colleague, a diary or calendar, a
really nice new notebook, your Project Management software, sticky post-it notes, reminders on
your phone … whatever works best for you!
4 - Make Success A Habit

Willpower alone won’t work. I don’t care how self-disciplined you are, your default setting is the
path of least resistance. And that’s cool. It is easy though to take the unproductive shortcut or go for
the option that delivers instant gratification rather than a benefit at the end of the project. Increase
your chances of not fouling up again by making success a habit.

For instance, attaching the actions in the plan to other daily habits is working for one of my PM pals.
His ‘ask the toughest questions’ exercise revealed that he wasn’t taking an overview or helicopter
view of his projects often enough. So, he attached this to another routine action, vowing that every
time he decided to put the kettle on, before heading to the kitchen, he’d take a quick fly over his
projects. In no time it became second nature, just a thing he would do without thinking about.