Schrodinger was hanging it out with Einstein over some tea. Long story short, there is a cat in a box with some poison and I think I found a link between this crazy tea party and how projects are run.
Ever heard of “Schrodinger’s Cat”? Erwin Schrodinger was a renowned physicist known in popular culture for the “Schrodinger’s Cat” thought experiment. The Experiment models a quantum paradox using a box, a cat, a radioactive substance and some poison, relax this is not science hour. The poison is hooked up to a Geiger counter, and if the Geiger picks up an atom decaying it smashes the poison, Mr Mittens then sheds his mortal coil. The point is that because the box is sealed, and the atom may or may not decay, Mr Mittens is both dead and alive at the same time! You only know Mr Mitten’s true state of existence if you open the box. Until that time it’s a mystery, and who doesn’t love a good mystery? I’ll tell you who, project sponsors and everyone who works on them!
Are you a Magician? No?! I didn’t think so. Mysteries belong in books, TV and Las Vegas, not in your projects! Mr Mittens is your project, in a box, with poison. We don’t want Mr Mittens to die, I don’t think anyone does. But as long as he is in that box he is a mystery. In project work mysteries are scary and people have a hard time dealing with it. So often projects are started and for some reason, that work is “Schrodingered”. Projects are turned into mysteries for whatever reason, perhaps the team needs the space to think or they feel threatened, I don’t know. But what I do know is this creates some real anxiety and discomfort around the project and this is a huge problem.
To live Mr Mittens has to matter to someone. Projects have to matter to people to succeed. Being valuable isn’t enough, they have to matter! Sometimes you are going to work on stuff that the whole company can’t know about and that’s OK. But you really should never work without a sponsor, that’s called going rouge, and that’s even worse than being mysterious! The basic rule is simple, you will rarely be in a position to work in a state of mysterious isolation. This means you have to make sure you are an open book to everyone who should matter, sponsors, champions and colleagues alike.
Breaking the mystery. Can’t we just open the box?! That does seem to be the easiest way to make sure people care about Mr Mittens. Leave the box open, seems simple enough, people can come and look in on him any time they want, and that should make Mr Mittens matter, right? This is unfortunately rarely enough, people have this annoying tendency to either get bored or forget where the boundaries are. They need reminding that Mr Mittens is still alive, that he matters and that there are rules to interacting with him. Leaving the box open means anyone can come around play with Mr Mittens, and the poison, and the radioactive stuff, this is not ideal. So leaving your project wide-open isn’t the best approach, you have to have a “controlled” environment to protect the flow in the project. Controlled is not the same as hidden or sealed. Let’s be clear, the difference between a wall and a fence is you can see what’s happening on the other side of the fence.
If we can’t leave the box open, What about we cut some windows in it?! Why cut holes if you could use a transparent box? If we need the box to be closed, but for people to still see Mr Mittens the best way to do this is to use a glass box, with some breathing holes. The Project environment remains controlled, it becomes transparent, but not messed with too much. Problem solved, yes!! Well partly. People still get bored and they forget, and sometimes that becomes nice and you can watch Mr Mittens undisturbed by pesky gawkers. I’ve fallen in that trap of using people’s boredom as a quiet space to execute projects before, but the price is high. People forget, you get lost in your project, and eventually, no one cares or supports the project anymore. Mr Mittens died and its your fault.
Right, we have a transparent box, how do we keep people interested? Words, words are super powerful, the easy answer here is reports. String words together to tell stories about Mr Mittens and send it to people to read. But like writing an article, you have to keep your audience interested in reading. How do you keep your audience, well you have to write stuff that is both easy to read and connects to their needs and values. You can do that by writing good reports. Make them colourful and easy to read with graphs and power statements that stick in people’s minds. Every time they think of Mr Mittens the bell should ring for their needs and values. Pavlovian for the win! This does mean that they have to read, and people don’t like reading , I do, but I’m a weirdo. I’ll read through a piece of legislation for fun. But getting people to read is a question of interest, you get them interested with conversations! Talk to anyone and everyone about Mr Mitten, how awesome he is and how cute he does this thing where he chases a feather and customer buy more stuff!
Mr Mittens does get lonely at times, invite people to come and say howdy! Building interest in your project is super important, talking about it enough so no one wants to try and open your box is the goal! There is a fine balance here. You need to feed people enough information, real information, to keep them interested but choose what you say carefully. We don’t want people who care feeling compelled to open the box. Keep them up to date so they can help shape decisions and more importantly help clear the way when needed. Give them reasons to care by spelling out how your project is adding value! Invite people to come to check in on Mr Mittens and plan for their visits! Also having planned visits means you can tell people “now is not a good time” when they show up unannounced. But this creates and opportunity to have a new conversation and back that up with the latest reports or showcase playbacks showing how awesome Mr Mittens is! Send them home, sad but excited about Mr Mitten. I know it sounds weird but it works, they won’t miss the next opportunity to pet the cat.
You’ve done it! The project is running safely, without too much interference. People know about Mr Mittens, they understand how he is adding value to their world, and some even ask about him regularly. You have a scheduled parade of “gawkers”, and you can tell his stories as easily as you can tell your own. There is one more thing you can do, bring the show to the people. Just like you would install a webcam and live stream the antics of Mr Mittens to anyone who wants to watch. You could automate the value visibility of your project, this can even be live! Use your imagination, it could be a dashboard with useful metrics and graphs representing the health and status of your project. Heck, you could even try and track customer engagement and show value through the same mechanism. The idea here is that you are not just having conversations and providing literature about your projects but you are giving a view into the project on demand!
At the end of the day, we all want Mr Mittens to live. And it’s frustrating how quickly we seal the box to protect a project only to doom it to failure. The funny thing is I’ve recently rediscovered the power of a simple report. Bullet lists with power statements. Just enough to explain a point, more than adequate to spark a conversation. In my experience, conversations go so much further than any document ever could. You have so much more opportunity to share your emotions, energizing the audience, sharing the experience allowing them to feel something more for the project, perhaps even love.
Don’t let Mr Mitten pay the price for your fears or challenges. Find the best ways to tell his story, that allows you to feel safe and push your own boundaries to tell better stories about his life.
Mind, on the rocks?! 