5 Lessons I Learned from a Failed Project
In consultancy, we sometimes face difficult situations that throw us into turmoil because we love our work. I recently went through a failed project which ended abruptly and felt like a sour relationship breakup – it is safe to say that it brought back some shuddering memories. After joining a new team, meeting new people and sharing some laughs, I am writing down 5 things I learned from my experience for my future self – perhaps it will help one of you out.
It’s like a tough sudden breakup
At first a breakup can be a sudden shock to the system. “What the hell happened?” you might think, or “What did I do wrong?” These are all valid thoughts and questions whilst there is a tornado of emotions destroying our heart and a speedway full of thoughts racing through our mind. Our relationship that we held in high esteem has now slipped away from us like the sand seeping through our open fingers. We all have had some experience of how long it takes to recover from that dark place.
In a similar way, a failed project has the initial emotional rollercoaster ride of uncertainty. We first hear the rumours that are eventually confirmed. And it dawns on us that eventually our little bubble of productivity has popped. At least that’s how it was for me. As a consultant, I have usually had a smooth transition between projects so when I heard that my lead DevOps role on our industrial client will be ending, my heart broke. I had worked hard with the client to show how much DevOps would be able to boost their productivity and demonstrated impact on developer experience through my automation work. It took me a little bit of time to swallow the red pill and come to the reality that this work was ending. I made time with my team to ensure that they were also processing the news and gave individuals support to deal with the impact of our failed project. In doing so, I realised the reason for our failed project was not personal.
It’s not personal
Once the emotional rollercoaster has come to an end, we begin to think more clearly. The storm has passed and the dust is beginning to settle so that we can pick up the pieces and find the signs that led up to this point. We might think, “Oh I remember this situation, my partner was going through a lot at that point!” We might also relish a cherished memory, “How we used to laugh together!” Sometimes it’s hard not to take it personally, sometimes it’s hard to accept ourselves for who we are. Relationships are complex and multidimensional, and sometimes the breakups are just not personal.
Hopefully by now you can see my train of thought in this analogy. When a project starts to show red flags, it’s usually not because of individual performance, there are going to be a number of other factors going on in the background. I learned that financials play a big impact in the success or failure of a project, therefore when the financials get messy it creates tensions and complications. An objective assessment of our team showed that we were high performing and delivering to key milestones that we had agreed with the client. We regularly held playback sessions to show how features and bug fixes were being implemented in the application, consequently the client was impressed with our work. A natural question from all the team when the bombshell dropped was, “so what actually happened?” When discussing it with them, I celebrated our successes and then discussed the number of factors that led to the point where we ended up. I emphasised the achievements we had, and that as a team we had fulfilled the expectations of the client. This brought me to my next lesson in this experience, that the business will always come first.
You come first
I won’t continue with the relationship analogy anymore as I think you understand the point. Another lesson that I learned from our project was that the business will come first. Working in consultancy, we have to manage our relationships with clients, sometimes we get on well and sometimes we don’t. I have worked with some particularly difficult and demanding clients in the past, and I practice three principles:
- Be patient and lend a listening ear using the emotional traffic light to check your responses
- Never commit to time lines or deadlines in an emotionally charged situation
- Use your support system, senior leadership and experienced mentors
These principles have helped me to remain professional despite the conversations that I have had with upset clients. In our project, I saw how our leadership team exemplified this. Firstly, our project manager ensured that the messages were communicated as soon as possible and made a safe space for us to ask questions. We then had global leadership speak to us individually. These conversations highlighted the individuals’ achievements as well as the project as a whole. In observing this, I learned that the business will protect itself and its people in tough situations. Many of these positive conversations were centred around what we could gain from the project, the lessons and the assets.
Take away lessons
An important part of failures is searching for the nuggets of gold and hidden gems in the life lessons and the assets for future use. We can take the time we need to process the emotional side of the breakup, and once we have done this, the most important next step is to look for the positives. Ultimately in life, difficult situations are given to us because we need to learn something. Either it’s to cultivate some quality, for example compassion or humility, or we need a lifestyle change, for example having a balanced diet or practising daily meditation.
In our project, I learned the lessons I am writing here. In addition to this, we presented to the global leadership team the key highlights of the project and they encouraged us to convert these into technical assets. For example, I spent time developing a new system of deploying applications using GitHub Actions and ArgoCD which created ephemeral environments for feature branches. This was a first of its kind in my projects and impressed the leadership team. Technical assets can help enable projects in the future to get a better start, but engineers must share their learnings with others. All engineers will want to keep their code for future use, and when we share this code with others it makes such a difference in the wider community. In the first instance, we can share these findings and gems with our mentors and eventually a senior will pick it up on their radar.
Spend time with loved ones
Back in the ‘You Come First’ section, I mentioned that we should use our support system and experienced mentors but I didn’t expand on it that much because I feel like it needs a whole section of itself. When we hit serious roadblocks in our life we will always find there are going to be certain people invested in us, just for who we are, and these people are absolutely going to support us. When we hit the end of our project, it came as a shock to many of us and in many cases engineers were left stranded on the bench. I was fortunate to have good mentors who put me in touch with projects that would be happy to take me on.
I found that staying close to my mentors, who were invested in me as a person and my career, meant that I was looked after, although I was faced with difficulty. Sometimes the business machine can be a beast that chews people up only to spit out the fragmented remnants. However, with good support, I felt looked after and protected from this beast. The people of the company define the experience of working there. I want to become that person which can be relied on to look out for their people. I learned that the skill of taking care of your people is an invaluable skill. Through this experience, I learned this is a skill I want to actively cultivate.
At the end of 2021, I went through a terrible and sudden break up between our client and the business. I learned many things, of which 5 are the most important
- Take the time you need to process your emotions
- It is usually not personal and there could other uncontrollable factors
- Highlight your individual achievements on the project
- Make sure you find the lessons and harvest/share assets
- Speak to your mentors and leadership teams to find a way forward
Thank you for taking the time to learn the lessons with me, I hope these will become useful for dealing with the inevitable obstacles and good luck!
