What I Learned About Project Management By Planning My Wedding: Part 5
Photo by Adi Goldstein via Unsplash
Lesson #5: Celebrate milestones.
Have you ever been on a project that seemed to last forever? You know, the one that felt like a total slog day after day, week after week, with no end in site? I’ve been on my fair share of those projects- some lasting upwards of two and half years, others which I think are still going today (which means they’re going on 8 or 9 years old!). I find that whenever I’m on a project that lasts more than a few months, it often starts to get monotonous. You have the same status meetings week after week. You talk about the same set of tasks - sometimes they get done, but more often than not, you hit delays. Or roadblocks. Or delays with roadblocks and other unforeseen problems that make you re-start the whole project over again. It can old, fast.
All things being equal, planning my wedding was a short project. It started on July 4th, 2022 and will be wrapped up by April 1, 2023. However, like so many professional projects, there were times when it felt like an absolute slog: read, the weekend we spent finishing the invitations and finally getting our website live. Yuck.
However, one thing that me and my fiance have been doing throughout it to celebrate the milestones. The night we booked our venue, we went out for dinner and ordered champagne. When I found my wedding dress, we ordered a special dinner in. And yes, when we finally sent out those invitations, we celebrated that too. With each of those celebrations, a little bit of the slog fell away. Eventually, I felt motivated to get something done just so that we could celebrate it later (talk about good motivation!). I would argue that it is completely OK to completely make up wedding planning milestones to celebrate - engagement was literally made to be a time of joy and celebration, so why not take advantage?
The lesson for me here is to find ways to celebrate the milestones for my projects at work, too. After all, there’s no reason why projects can’t be an excuse for joy and celebration, too! For those of us lucky to be in close proximity to team members, maybe we organize a team happy hour after a big milestone is reached, or even at the end of a regular sprint. Maybe we send a note of appreciation to someone who finished a big task (and better yet, copy their boss on it). Or maybe we just take a minute to say thank you and congratulations to the team during a meeting… There are a lot of ways to celebrate, and celebrating as a team not only helps fend off the slog, but it can also become a unifying and motivating force within the team. For my part, I intend to celebrate my projects early and often from now on.
WHAT DO YOU THINK?
Is celebrating milestones something that comes naturally to you? Do you have any other tips/tricks to ward off the slog that long-running projects so often become?