End of Year Review (2021)

Join Rod and Dale as they discuss preparing for and conducting end of year reviews, while focusing on why we do reviews in the first place.

Transcript

Rod: 0:06

Welcome to messy but essential. I'm Rod Stillwell. And this is the podcast about the people side of project leadership. It's where we help you improve your soft skills to reduce heart costs. In today's episode, we're going to be talking about those end of year, look back. So the times when we spend just reviewing where we've been not necessarily formal performance reviews or anything like that, but rather, where have we been? How did we do? And where are we headed? Joining me in the studio today is my brother Dale, who's both my business partner and best friend, and comes with a significant amount of project experience around the world. L is our engineer and producer today. And we're looking forward to just having this chat with you, and hoping to shed some light for you on how you can do those end of year wrap ups. Before we get going, though, let's talk a little bit about safety. This is in many parts of the world, a time of the year, where there's a lot of rushing around, getting ready for the holidays, we're the middle there almost the middle of December. And here in Canada, you know, the snow, for the most part is starting to fall in various regions, and so on. And so we're in that transition period, where we're stressed a bit because the end of the year is coming, we're paying attention to a lot of other things, and we may not pay as much attention to safety. So it's even little things like how do we make sure that we get in and out of our vehicles in a safe way, given that there could be ice or messy conditions under foot when we get out of the vehicle or getting in, it can be as simple as well as just paying attention, especially during, you know, as we're still working through this pandemic, of keeping a safe distance and that whole social distancing, or physical distancing part of the safety as we're out shopping, preparing for the holidays, having friends and so on over. We want to make sure that we don't drop our guard just because we're focused on other things. So let's talk about that in the VU time, Dale, it's, you know, we, and welcome, by the way, thank you. We've, we've all been there where all of a sudden, it's January and December went by and we've jumped into new objectives and New Year New targets, whatever. And we haven't necessarily taken time to bring closure to the previous year. So part of what I want to talk about today is what is some of the ways within the project world because of course, we have often structure within the corporate world, we have annual performance reviews, and you know all the things that none of us really, really love, but they're out there, and that's part of life. But in the project world, where we have a different type of ending. How do we look at where we've been over a year? What are some of the things that that, you know, experiences been for you?

Dale: 3:17

Yeah, I mean, I think I think some of those challenges are this, for me are similar to the challenges you have in doing a project review of you know, of any kind, right, it's the same sort of thing you're trying to try and go through, how it's gone, and what's worked and what hasn't, and all those types of things. I think it's suffers from some of the same challenges in a lot of ways. You know, to me, the one that was always the biggest problem was that recency bias, right, that that difficulty in evaluating anything other than the last three months. You know, the totally forgetting what it was we did in January, February, March, April, May, you know, maybe you remember something that happened in the summer, but you know, it's really, really hard to and if you've had some great successes in the project in the early part of the year, and then suddenly you get to the end of the year. And you know, maybe there was some bigger challenges at the end or, or things are just getting, you know, maybe you're at a phase in the project where things are starting to ramp down a little bit. Some members have left, you know, where it's hard to kind of remember that there was this great successful activity and successful, you know, world you were in six months, eight months ago.

Rod: 4:41

Absolutely. I totally concur, I think. And it's probably true in all parts of our lives, right? We tend to have that recency bias we tend to and in many ways we can overlook those first number of months because our Focus legitimately has been trying to solve the problems of the last three months. And so our brains aren't necessarily keeping track. So I that's definitely I can see what that's a challenge and in projects are no different than any other parts of our lives. Live, I want to pick up on something you said in terms of looking back through the year. So what are some of the ways that you prepare, if you wish for that review? And I realized we're talking about the review now. And so if you haven't done any of these things, podcast listeners, well, you can do them next year. But you know, what are some of the ways that you make sure that we don't lose track of those first five months in preference to our recent memory for the last five?

Dale: 5:44

Yeah, so I mean, the project manager maybe has one advantage in in terms of that, versus the, you know, your regular sort of corporate objectives or those types of things, and that there's a lot more structure to what you're trying to deliver. You know, you've got a very structured project plan, you've you've done all kinds of work, breakdown, milestones, milestones, you've got all kinds of things. So you have a structure that you can use to your advantage. That's not as easy for something, there's not a project, right. But I still think as to your point, there's preparation that you can do to make that happen. So when you get to milestones, what do you do at the end of a milestone? Do you review the work that got you to that milestone? Do you rate that milestone for success? versus, you know, failure? Do you do a little bit of an ash after action report on that milestone, right? You know, do you do those? Or do you just kind of go okay, Phew, that's done. Now, we're into the next crisis. And we're kind of running with it. So I think some of it is those types of challenges, right? It's just being actually thinking through, okay, where are we taking those times to reflect on something to say, where are we at? How did it go? You know, because it's hard when you're running with a long project, to focus on the successes. Right to remember what the successes is kind of, you know, it's it's, what have you done familiarly?

Rod: 7:16

So it's great to think about the end of the year and all those good things. But that recency bias, you're talking about? How do we overcome that? So what are the things we can do during the year that make it possible to do the UN review? Now, again, I want to stress that we're not talking about a formal clothes out of the project or anything like this. It's just mentally, we come to the end of the year, and we want to know, how the year has been. It's not relative relative to specific milestones or whatever within a project. It's just before we start a new year, let's kind of close out where we've been in the year. So what are some of the things we can do to actually help us to avoid that recency bias, and to truly be able to celebrate the wins? And look at how we make the next year? That much better?

Dale: 8:46

Yeah. So I think the project manager actually has some advantages in this versus your regular corporate structure, right? Because the project managers got a much more structured environment. You know, in theory, you've got a whole project plan, you've got work breakdown structures, you've got milestones, you've got, you know, tasks, you've got all the rest of this type of stuff that you're working through, as you go, you know, deliverables, stage, deliverables, all these things. So in some ways, you've got some tools that can make it easier for you, then in just a regular management structure where you know, you're working towards objectives, but maybe it's not quite as granular terms of information. So how do you take some of those things and make that make it make your life easier as you come to look at these reviews and trying to figure out, you know, where we're at, and sort of, as you say, I mean, if you've got a project that started in the beginning of December, then the break doesn't mean the same thing. But if you've got a project that's been running for a long period of time, as soon as you have a break, like this, then natural break of some kind, then it is a good time to kind of review there is going to be a pick back up when people come back. But those are just natural, you guess rhythms, right. So I think one of the things is, you know, how do you deal with the Uh, the milestones in your projects as you go, you know, do you when you get to a milestone in the project? Do you have a form of after action report or or or milestone review? Where you look at that milestone you say, Okay, what have we accomplished? How to go? If we were to do it again? Would we do something different? Or are you already running on to the next one? Because, you know, the pressures, the schedule, the pressures of whatever? So do we take time as project managers to do those reviews? Do we take time to talk to the people who on our teams about those milestones? Do we build into our schedules time? To sort of do checkpoints?

Rod: 10:41

That's a good, that's an excellent point, I would confess that most of the projects that I've audited over the years, and that I've done, post mortems, or after action reviews on or whatever, you know, one of the things that they were guilty of, was not looking back now to previous similar projects. For instance, what did the closeout report look like? What were some of the learnings from it, we seem to have this tendency to jump right into the next project, without spending the time to, you need to do those reviews unless they're, they're part of a formal contract. In many cases, we're running flat out anyway. And so we do a cursory yay, Okay, we're done. Next phase, let's move on. But we don't really have those pauses. Reflection, decide what we're going to do next, commit to it, because we're gonna change.

Dale: 11:38

That's right, oh, if something hasn't been working, or be, you know, those kinds of things, exactly. And not necessarily what we're going to change in terms of, you know, the deliverables, oh, that's a different process. But in terms of maybe how we work, that how the communication is going, you know, whether there's a few little issues in terms of dealing with, you know, one part of a business or, you know, a client or one of those, you know, whatever those things are having those those reviews and intentionally saying, okay, so how did this work? What are we going to do? And I think it, it's work that would help you, yes, for these end of year reviews, etc. But at the end, it also helps you when you get to the end of your project, because you're going to have had these many reviews throughout, it's going to be much easier to pull together a final review. Absolutely. You know, oftentimes, when we get to the end of a project, we don't have anywhere near the resources, the same resources that we had, when we started the project, of course, people have moved on the web, you know, oftentimes, it's phasing down and to get to the end, so you've lost a whole bunch of resources. So you don't have those people participating in that final, right reporting process, right, that's, you lose a lot of potential off. So if you're doing it as you go, if you're breaking it up into chunks, and you're doing it as you go, then you've got a lot more input potentially, that you can leverage.

Rod: 12:50

That's a, that's a really good point. And I think, again, if you're a podcast listener, who doesn't do this routinely, these are some good things to get into the habit of doing. I think one of the, you know, the issues, really, that we need to always be aware of is that, as a project leader, you're leading people, and really what I'm talking about in terms of that end of the year, it's, it's helping your team bring closure to the year there is a psychological need for some level of closure before we move on to the next year. And it may not be phase dependent, it may be phase dependent on a number of ways of doing that. But so i i also then, you know, look at, you talked about communications, how are we? What's the health, organizational health, if you wish, your team health, we're not talking about physical health, although, you know, if we're going fast and hard, and, you know, it is possible that we need to stop and say, Okay, let's take a break for our physical health, but also just that, what have we learned? And how can we leverage what we learned in the next part that we're going to be doing? And I think that that, you know, we often, especially in larger projects, we're kind of focused on getting to the top of the mountain. And really, the review for me is, how have we done so far, we've made it through Basecamp, up to the next level, etc. And how's that going? Without getting stuck with focusing on the final peak? Because it's kind of far away, and it's, you know, fairly elusive. So I think when I talk to the end of the year, then I also want to know, what are some of the things that we've really loved doing together as a team? So our focus in this podcast, of course, is leadership and we lead people, we manage budgets, we manage milestones, we manage those things, but we lead people. So things like what are our strengths? What are the strengths that we've exhibited this year? And then with that, I also like to say, what are some of the things that frustrated us that obviously I was in Oakland, Call, let's not spend a lot of time on things that aren't in our locus of control. Because, quite frankly, it's just spinning our wheels and, and risks getting resentful and not everything. But the things that I control. What were our frustrations, and then within that, so what when we looking back that kind of retro for the previous year, looking at his strengths, and our frustrations are the ways that we can leverage our strengths to overcome those frustrations next year. All right. And then really whatever process you're using, and, and as I said, the show notes, will, will provide some models that I think could be helpful, depending on what you already doing, and so on, that can kind of fit in just about any situation. But ultimately, for, you know, as a leader, your job is the health of your team. And how are they feeling? And I realize feeling is not necessarily very technical term, and it's hard to put a number on it and that type of thing. But how are you feeling about the year? How are they feeling about the year ahead? You know, yeah, I know, one of the things that I used to look at Dale, in terms of project reviews was, would this team work together? Again? Yeah. And you know, you could be 100 budget, on time, have met the scope. But if nobody wants to work with anybody, ever again, you have to ask yourself, was it really a successful project? Okay, because we, it's more than just bricks and mortar and, and, you know, bridges and buildings, and mines and, and software launches and those types of things. It's, it's community. And I think if if COVID, for instance, has taught us anything, it's that we are a community species, and we need community, we need to be together, we need to find ways to connect. But then we also need to find ways to have feedback. Yeah, and how the years gone. So let's think in terms then as we as we kind of move forward. When you're bringing that group together, whether it's virtual, by the way, or sure, you know, our team, what are some of the preparation that you want individual team members to do? To help us have a successful review together?

Dale: 17:12

Yeah. So I mean, I, you know, I definitely think obviously, you know, we've talked a little bit about these types of things, when we talked about meetings and things in the past, obviously, you know, you this can't be cold, you do need to give people time to prepare, not everyone's going to do that, you know, some people think better on their feet, and you know, that they'll just have it in their heads, and they don't What about other people are going to want to list it and work it through and, and do some of those things. So I think it is worthwhile, absolutely. Providing them with some kind of a framework and say, here's how we want to, here's how I want to do this. And here's so here's what I'd like you to come prepared to discuss. You know, so So I like your idea of Okay, so what are the, you know, what are the things that have worked? What are the things that haven't been working? You know, where are where do we think our, you know, our, as a team were strongest? Where do we think we're weakest? You know, what are the things that if there was one thing you'd like to do differently? Coming in January? What might that be? You know, those types of things? Because, you know, I think sometimes as we get into projects, you know, when we first ramp up a project, you know, we're hiring people, we're doing all that type of stuff, we're scoping out the manpower, once we get going into that project. We don't often, we don't tweak that often, as much as we might, as maybe we should, you know, so maybe we're running along with something like communication, where we're just not the communication isn't isn't working, as well as we'd like, none of us really have time to manage it, et cetera, you know, it, it might be perfectly possible to go back to the steering team and say, Hey, we want to hire a communications person. We, you know, we need to bring on board, it's not a massive expense, by comparison to the overall project. It's, you know, it's part time, it's whatever it is, but we really think we need a resource to do is, you know, do we do those things, that could be something that your team comes up and says, Hey, let's really we're not doing this? Well. If we could change this, I'd love to hand this off to somebody else, because I personally find it difficult to get this part done. You know, and they, maybe whatever that is, those I think are opportunities to look at those and say, okay, oh, hey, yeah, maybe there is something we can do here. You know, not everything that's that you'd like to change is necessarily a crisis. Some of them actually have simple solutions. But we never even bother to stop and look for them. You know, because they're just kind of a background, annoyance. It's just there. It's just something that we're all kind of muddling through

Rod: 19:36

with a green. I think that's part of the, you know, the issues is that we do not spend enough time stopping and reflecting. You know, there's that whole modular approach that ultimately chunking and bringing and when we you know, as human beings part of our the way we learn part of our, our thinking for many people is the ability to To deal with small bits, and to chunk it through. And the same for a project, you know, I mean, obviously, certain projects until the project is completely done. It's not really operational. So it may not be as easy to have small bits that function you run with it, etc. You know, if you're building a nuclear power plant 95% done doesn't help you. 100% and even

Dale: 20:25

on projects, we logically break things into phases. Milestones are two lanes, Pat, whatever, right, in order to try and count and capsulate that and come to a, you know, okay, this is done, this piece is now done, we can move on to the next piece. Yes. So I think even in those contexts, we still do it, even if it's, you know, the, there's a different

Rod: 20:45

type of champion, yes. It may not be a yes, you may not end up like, you know, building, you know, modular, each module actually now. Yeah, but I think, you know, if we come back to then the the review, and that end of you feeling good, I think it's important to be able to have everyone step back, truly, deeply reflect and sometimes I've done that with the group actually there. So, it and, you know, there are a number of ways of doing that. I remember at one point, I just gave everybody a booklet and pencil sort of thing and said, just start writing, just write whatever comes to mind. And it was fascinating. I mean, the first five minutes, a whole bunch of things are happening. And then you watch and then that next five minutes or 10 minutes are pretty tough. And, and then you start to see people really like the people are flipping pages. And, and it's amazing how just letting it come out, is is a critical part of our thinking process. But let's not lose sight of the fact that the reason we want to do that is because we need to learn from where we've been. That's the whole point of these reviews. I mean, I don't know about you, but I've sat through my share of performance assessments at the end of the year, corporate type things, okay. Where I really felt like I was just helping somebody check off a box. And many cases, my manager and I would agree, but we have to do it, because whomever, whatever department, whatever needs this, and they're going to be able to check off their boxes, we did it. That's not what we're talking about here. What we're really talking about is the ability to help the team, grow, learn be better people and a better team, as a result of spending time reflecting Yeah, I want to take it one step further than as we wrap this up. And that is simply to say, in that session, we're looking at the team, it's very important to avoid judgment and avoid finger pointing and those types of things. So we've had previous podcasts where we talked about giving feedback, and I, the show notes can give links to those. But I, from your perspective, what's one or two things that we can do just to avoid that finger pointing.

Dale: 23:15

I think as the project manager, this is your meeting, you're you're you're the one going through this process, obviously, that means you're going to need to or should be, hopefully, it's obvious that it means you're going to need to facilitate that process. So you need to be you need to be able to take yourself out of the actual information that's being gathered, and be the person helping to manage the process, facilitating a facilitator. So you get to step one level above this, which means your feedback is not going to come out as much, you can't participate as much in that it's the team that's going to be doing that, because you need to manage the interactions, you need to manage those things. And if it starts becoming, you know, too critical you and it's not going in those positive directions, or those those beneficial directions that will be positive in terms of everything has to be a positive. But in terms of a beneficial direction, you need to steer that you need to come and say, Okay, well hang on a second, let's not, you know, go too far down that path and rephrase the question to that person or ask them to rephrase their their idea in a different way or do something like that. And I think that's your That's your job. And it's not always easy. But I think as that project manager, that's your role in this situation is to make let the team get those ideas out there and work through it. One other thing I would say in that is, if you're going to do this, then you need to do something with the information. say that's because that's a killer if you do not if you if you have these conversations and you never take action on what comes out, and you never communicate back to the team, or what action you took, you're going to lose them. Right? And that doesn't mean that you can solve every problem, right? It's okay for you to come back to the team and say, Hey, I took this up to management, we talked about it. You know, I gave him a couple of we talked about the options we discussed. And unfortunately, there's no budget for that. We can't do that. Okay, most teammates can understand most people on projects, understand the limitations of what we're going through. What they don't understand is silence.

Rod: 25:30

Right. Right, or something just stayed in the file never went beyond conversation, I think that's a great place to wrap up is is the whole idea that if you're going to ask the questions, you need to be prepared to take action on the answers. And I think when we do that, as you say, even if that action is to be able to come back and say, no budget, or doesn't fit within the constraints, or there's other ways that we want to do that. I think that's a that's a great observation, and something that each one of us can take away in whatever context we're working. So although we're talking about project management, you know, it can be sitting down with your, you know, your partner, or your kids or whatever, at the end of the year and saying, Hey, how's the you been? Where have we gone? What have we learned? How have we grown? You know, I read about a couple that have been married for 40 years. But they describe it as actually being married four times to the same person each time. But every 10 years, they stop and they say we've grown, we're different. We're not the same as we were, when we, you know, 10 years ago, what's the next 10 years going to look like, in this new persona with these, you know, and the same therefore goes through the team next year is another year, you're going to maybe have new people coming in people leaving, etc. And what's it going to look like? So, this has been really helpful. And I think for everyone out there listening to the podcast, what, you know, if I can leave you with any message, it would be, take the time to pause, reflect on how things are going. Check your emotions, what's frustrating you what's exciting, you should be be real about it. And then come up with an action plan for how you use that feedback, that information in a way to help yourself, the team and the project. Thanks very much, Dale. Thank you. Appreciate your insights today. And for all of you listening. Thanks for listening. And if you happen to be listening to this around the holiday time, we wish you very happy holidays and successful start of the next year.