It’s 2:00 a.m. and my big project at work is officially over. I don’t know what I’ll do with my time over the next couple of weeks. The funniest thing is that I will REALLY miss the Excel workbook I’ve been using for this project – that thing was a beast.
I’m currently at my office, sitting in the support center helping with whatever they need, which frankly, isn’t much (which is good). Our project "went live" at midnight and other than a couple hiccups, it has gone well thus far.
I’ve learned a lot from this project – the best thing is that I’m really good at tactical and operational project management. It’s definitely my wheelhouse.
The other most notable thing I’ve learned is that even if you repeat something over and over and over to make sure everyone gets the message, not everyone will get that message.
Case in point – for the past several weeks I’ve been asking my team to send out a particular piece of information. In addition to them passing along the information, I’ve been emailing the leaders to remind them of the info. I’ve attended their meetings and announced in person this particular info. We’ve sent newsletters with this particular message. We’ve posted on our internal social media. We’ve said it in passing to people in the halls. We’ve sent 2-3 slide Powerpoint decks to people.
Basically, you couldn’t ESCAPE this particular information. And yet tonight as a leader and I visited all the various departments in our building, we had an entire area that was told by someone just TODAY the very opposite of our information. We quickly told their leader that NO, that was not correct.
*sigh*
No idea how that one person got missed, but it makes me wonder to whom else she gave misinformation. Fortunately, another leader went to all the departments after us and re-messaged the correct info to make sure everyone working tonight is on the same page. And we’ll do the same thing this morning when the day crew comes in. And again tomorrow night. And so on.
But it’s amazing to me that some people can hear something multiple times and still not listen.
That’s the biggest lesson learned from this project. Just because you tell someone, doesn’t mean they’ll listen. And that’s their fault, not yours. Or mine.
I’ve gotten good feedback on my role in this project, and one leader in particular was very complimentary about my work ethic when she popped into the support center tonight. It makes me happy to know my hard work is being recognized.
Having said that, I cannot wait for this project to officially be over. My team has one more meeting on Wednesday and then they are cut loose. But then I remain "on call" for another week after that until I’m officially off the project. Woo!
Then it’s on to the next one – which has already been identified and has the potential to be really great. The best part is that project has no set deadline other than "Jaynee is going to work on it for a year." The work itself is deadline free, though, which will be nice.
