Clowning Around for Improved Project Implementation

Have you ever worked with someone who makes a project look easy? Conversely, have you observed teams grinding tasks, putting in significant effort and making them much harder than needed?

Seth Godin is one of my favorite bloggers and he recently published an article that resonated with me called “The Lazy Jugglers.” Full disclosure, many years ago I took a clowning class from two Ringling Brothers Barnum and Bailey Circus clowns. Every respectable clown knows how to juggle, take a punch, and tell stories through both facial expressions and physical comedy. So yes, at one time in my life, I could juggle three bean bags with the tiniest bit of flair.

Seth called his article “the Lazy Jugglers” because when they are good at it, the performers make juggling look easy. They understand the work and the difference between effort and results. The approaches used by great jugglers also apply to effective project implementation.

6 Project Implementation Approaches to Improve Your Project Teams

1. Focus on the work at hand – think about the concentration it takes for juggling. For projects, we need similar concentration and focus to implement the tasks in front of us.

Multi-tasking frequently results in rework, confusion, or inefficiencies. Prioritize tasks and devote the resources needed to fully complete them. Have a plan for getting the next tasks completed.

2. Throws are more important than catches – yup, consistently throwing the balls to the same height, in the same location is the key to spectacular juggling.

For projects, understanding what is important is critical. Check in with your team frequently to ask questions like “Are we doing the most important things? Or, perhaps, are we focused on the low hanging fruit or the urgent but unimportant tasks?” Realign activities and resources as needed. Make sure that the right people are on the right jobs.

3. Establish a specification and ignore perfection – consistency matters in juggling. Consistency in throws, consistency in catches, and consistency in rethrows. However, most jugglers make mistakes – and they keep going – quite often without the audience even noticing the less than perfect execution.

The same is true for projects. While we strive for perfection in what we do, close is good enough in many tasks. I have worked with several teams who were revising monthly pay estimates four and five times before they would submit for payment. This pushed out payment months causing cashflow issues and political problems. Other teams are able to quickly reconcile the pay application and agree to remove disputed elements for the next pay application (prioritizing cash flow over perfection). Be thoughtful about whether perfect matters and never confuse effort with results.

4. Devote time to hone your craft – jugglers practice the same act over, and over, and over. Thankfully, the feedback is immediate and adjusting technique provides instantaneous results.

Commit to improving your personal skills and knowledge for your craft. Be open to learning as a life journey and take advantage of both informal and formal training. Ask questions. Mentor someone.

5. Consistently add incremental challenges – the first step in juggling is to master one ball – throw it to the same height and location reliably. Add in a second ball and later a third. Then celebrate, because who can do more than three?

Breaking tasks into pieces that can be accomplished, then adding the next piece, and the next, builds on successful performance and leads to results.

6. Frantic leads to more frantic – sometimes jugglers let the balls drop and start over.

Take this lesson seriously. Resist the temptation to charge forward before you’ve worked together to develop a solid plan. Go slow to go smooth. And go smooth to become fast. Good leaders are willing to drop a plan and go with a new one when it is in the best interest of the project.

Here is your call to action:

Improve project implementation by taking 15 minutes to talk through these juggling strategies with your team. Identify a few specific actions inspired by the lazy juggler that your team can use to improve project performance.

For motivation, a team identified these ideas in a recent partnering session:

• Trust what you’ve been trained to do; trust other people too
• Don’t take on more than you can handle
• Make incremental schedule improvements – it keeps us sharp
• Do routine things routinely
• Maintain forward thinking – eyes on the next steps
• Focus on work at hand, no loose ends
• Set realistic expectations
• Avoid frantic, it leads to more frantic – step back and take a look

~Cinda

Cinda Bond, MIPI, has been an OrgMetrics partnering facilitator for more than 10 years. She has facilitated more than 500 sessions for teams throughout the country. She also collaborates with engineering and construction teams to develop large documents containing hundreds of pages for construction contracts and proposals.
For more information please contact Cinda Bond, CindaBond@Orgmet.com / (925)640-9007 (cell), or OrgMetrics RobReaugh@Orgmet.com / (925)449-8300