Lessons in Workload Management

I, like many other leaders, have fallen for the temptations of leveraging our ‘wild card’ resource on our teams to resolve any type of incident, and to remove any impediment to project delivery or task execution. Oh, and those pesky escalations too. For the purpose of this thread lets call the wild card, Clement. The Clement on your team is your strongest resource and probably the most experienced one. He or she are very versatile and are not intimidated by any issue, regardless of how complex it may seem. They’re your do-it-all resource.

‘Winning’ in the scenarios I described above is definitely short lived. What you’ll later find out is, while you’ve effectively managed to solve all your issues, removed all impediments, and kept all those escalations happy, you’re accumulating weeks and weeks worth of tasks that are not getting done. More projects are getting delayed, deadlines are being missed. But how? Can you imagine what’s happening when every other Project Manager, your Director, and your VP pulls Clement aside to deliver on their agenda or solve their problems? Leveraging the Clements in teams is every manager’s lazy way of solving problems – and your VP’s too. It doesn’t require thinking or planning on their parts. It’s not looking ahead; while it’s a very tactical approach aimed at keeping the people right in front of you happy, it has strategic and long term consequences to it.

Sooner than you think, all projects will start depending on your Clement, your operations folks will too – you’ve uncontrollably created a bottleneck in your operational and delivery model and it’s not looking pretty. You’ve also created a team where people no longer need to or are encouraged to think, and they’re not being challenged. I’d go as far to say that, you’re also not finding the need to think when handling these problems.

One aspect of workload management that is frequently missed is determining not just what your team’s value proposition is, but what each individual on your team brings to the table and making sure that the value he/she brings to the organization is matched up to the type of work they’re being assigned to. This is critical to managing an effective team in Operations. What’s even more important is making sure that each individual is not getting pulled away from the work that they deliver maximum value to; including your Clement. Clement is likely assigned to more complex or critical projects when compared to the rest of your portfolio. But ask yourself: what if every person on your team can get assigned to critical projects and assignments? What if you could never need to pull Clement away from his work? What if you could create a team where every one gets their fair shot at glory? What if you could build a capability instead of pushing solutions out your door?

It’s very possible, but it can take some time depending on the state that your team is in. And another post.

Stay tuned.