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May 20, 2018 2:23 AM Subscribe
Is there a good way to seriously analyze my involvement in a failed work project, for my own benefit?
I spent several months on a work project recently which I think was a waste of all the time and resources spent on it, and I'm pretty sure "we all made mistakes" - but while I can detail how the rest of the team screwed up, I can't really do so for myself. I'd like to believe that I did everything right, but it doesn't seem very likely - how can I do some kind of individual postmortem to figure out how I could do better next time, or avoid getting caught up in a 'next time' at all?
Complication: the project didn't end, I quit. It's still going, and the rest of the team ranges in opinion from "who cares, they pay me" to "this is awesome and you're just bitter we didn't do it your way", so this isn't going to be a traditional project postmortem, or even done in collaboration with anyone else who was working on it. And part of what I'm hoping to do is convince myself that they aren't right, as well as to hopefully move on so I can stop dreaming about it and re-living all those decisions.
(I tried going to therapy while working there, but my therapist wanted me to focus on not expecting anything from colleagues instead of helping me figure out if my expectations were reasonable, so I didn't find it useful - apparently that was CBT, perhaps other types are different? I've also left out all the details of the project and why it was a clusterfuck because I don't want answers guessing at what I did wrong, I want answers telling me how to figure it out.)
I spent several months on a work project recently which I think was a waste of all the time and resources spent on it, and I'm pretty sure "we all made mistakes" - but while I can detail how the rest of the team screwed up, I can't really do so for myself. I'd like to believe that I did everything right, but it doesn't seem very likely - how can I do some kind of individual postmortem to figure out how I could do better next time, or avoid getting caught up in a 'next time' at all?
Complication: the project didn't end, I quit. It's still going, and the rest of the team ranges in opinion from "who cares, they pay me" to "this is awesome and you're just bitter we didn't do it your way", so this isn't going to be a traditional project postmortem, or even done in collaboration with anyone else who was working on it. And part of what I'm hoping to do is convince myself that they aren't right, as well as to hopefully move on so I can stop dreaming about it and re-living all those decisions.
(I tried going to therapy while working there, but my therapist wanted me to focus on not expecting anything from colleagues instead of helping me figure out if my expectations were reasonable, so I didn't find it useful - apparently that was CBT, perhaps other types are different? I've also left out all the details of the project and why it was a clusterfuck because I don't want answers guessing at what I did wrong, I want answers telling me how to figure it out.)
And part of what I'm hoping to do is convince myself that they aren't right, as well as to hopefully move on so I can stop dreaming about it and re-living all those decisions.
What if, radically, you are allowed to have quit simply because you were unhappy. What if you don’t have to have been right for anyone but yourself?
I like the idea of putting down major parts of the project and your life on a whiteboard and how you felt.
posted by warriorqueen at 4:01 AM on May 20, 2018 [7 favorites]
What if, radically, you are allowed to have quit simply because you were unhappy. What if you don’t have to have been right for anyone but yourself?
I like the idea of putting down major parts of the project and your life on a whiteboard and how you felt.
posted by warriorqueen at 4:01 AM on May 20, 2018 [7 favorites]
how can I do some kind of individual postmortem to figure out how I could do better next time, or avoid getting caught up in a 'next time' at all?
If you have not already read The Mythical Man-Month, do so. It's a good guide for things to watch out for, and if you take its lessons to heart it will be highly protective against future involvement with death-march projects.
posted by flabdablet at 9:16 AM on May 20, 2018 [1 favorite]
If you have not already read The Mythical Man-Month, do so. It's a good guide for things to watch out for, and if you take its lessons to heart it will be highly protective against future involvement with death-march projects.
posted by flabdablet at 9:16 AM on May 20, 2018 [1 favorite]
Oh I feel you on this. I had a terrible time recently in a multi-year project that went on and on and crunched through so many people there was only me and a developer left standing. And then I had to kill it.
I did a post-mortum for the sake of my own sanity. What helped most was sorting key project decisions into three catories: those I drove, those I opposed, and those I supported. Writing these out and then looking at my motivation for each was really eye-opening.
I realised how much personal responsibility I'd taken on in areas over which I actually very limited control, but also where I'd dropped the ball on things that were in my control either because I was actually in the wrong, or I'd just given in for the sake of an easier path.
Now I can see that mostly my decisions were made in good faith - I was acting on what I believed to be true. But I can also see that a couple of key areas came under my unwillingness to concede to a colleague who I just didn't like. Or an area of research or comms that I had knowingly half-assed, because it was difficult or dull.
Looking dispassionately at just the decision points helped me to see that I'd also often chosen well way more than I realised at the time. Yay me!
In any case I now see that project as a set of things that I needed to learn, about me as much as the tech, and gave some clear points in what to look out for in the future to help make for a better experience next time. Some projects will always suck, but it can be less painful if you can interrogate and own your choices along the way.
posted by freya_lamb at 4:39 PM on May 20, 2018 [2 favorites]
I did a post-mortum for the sake of my own sanity. What helped most was sorting key project decisions into three catories: those I drove, those I opposed, and those I supported. Writing these out and then looking at my motivation for each was really eye-opening.
I realised how much personal responsibility I'd taken on in areas over which I actually very limited control, but also where I'd dropped the ball on things that were in my control either because I was actually in the wrong, or I'd just given in for the sake of an easier path.
Now I can see that mostly my decisions were made in good faith - I was acting on what I believed to be true. But I can also see that a couple of key areas came under my unwillingness to concede to a colleague who I just didn't like. Or an area of research or comms that I had knowingly half-assed, because it was difficult or dull.
Looking dispassionately at just the decision points helped me to see that I'd also often chosen well way more than I realised at the time. Yay me!
In any case I now see that project as a set of things that I needed to learn, about me as much as the tech, and gave some clear points in what to look out for in the future to help make for a better experience next time. Some projects will always suck, but it can be less painful if you can interrogate and own your choices along the way.
posted by freya_lamb at 4:39 PM on May 20, 2018 [2 favorites]
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There are a bunch of ways you could structure this session to explore what happened, but the most important bit will be generating actions or understanding about what you could do differently next time if you find yourself in a similar situation.
If I were running this, I would be tempted to get you to put up a timeline of the project using sticky notes on a whiteboard or wall - what were the major events (either big project events or big interpersonal events that impacted the project), and how did you feel/react during each of these events (you can capture changing sentiment over time easily using the y axis of your timeline).
Then narrow your focus down to the most crucial events/biggest stressors (in terms of how you ended up feeling about the project and the work you did) and brainstorm a list of actions for how you'd approach the situation differently, ideally as specific and behavioural as you can get. These could be anything from "next time I'm asked to work on a project and it's obvious that the project will be chaotic but no one else seems to care, I'll decline/ask to be taken off the project", to "next time I'm working with Bob and he does that really irritating thing, I'll get out of the building and take a quick walk instead of engaging with him".
If you don't know anyone you trust to work with on this, instead of therapy I would consider paying for one session with a career or executive coach and asking them to facilitate this kind of review.
posted by terretu at 2:36 AM on May 20, 2018 [1 favorite]