Before our last project kick-off meeting, my team took an hour to clarify our personal objectives and align them with the project goals. This turned out to be a very powerful means of energizing the team. This post is about how we realize personal goals in the project.
First of all, we went through the defined project objectives with regard to scope, deadline, budget, and other constraints.
Then we went through the softer objectives. Would success open up more opportunities or give us good PR? Would this help our knowledge management goals?
In the third round, we decided to talk openly about personal goals. What did we expect personally from this project? Was it learning a specific technology, experiencing the same friendly environment as in the previous one, or stretching and focusing much more on the customer’s need this time? And what did we expect from each other? More support or more empowerment from a senior to a junior colleague, more proactivity from a team member, or a clearer direction or more presence from a leader?
We closed the meeting with a sense of aligned purposefulness and motivation.
This project kick-off meeting seems even more powerful when we look back on it. When we held a retrospective, almost all of us were content with what had happened during the execution of the project. Luckily this project was not cursed with major problems, at least not with the type that we couldn’t handle. We valued the ambiance of sincerity and the trust we realized by simply being open. And yes, we delivered the full scope on time to excellent quality.
People leadership is an important aspect of our life at Doctusoft. We wrote some interesting articles on this topic, so if you enjoyed this, you might want to check out those too.
