Post-Project Close: Deflate Gate 2.0?

Months – years for some participants – of planning, learning, changing, doing. We did it! We successfully went live just about a month ago. Yes there’s still work to do and some kinks to iron out, but WE DID IT! The logo’d pencils handed out last year on Yawkey 3 foreshadowed the unavoidable truth, “It’s going to be EPIC!”

 
As an Epic Project Team Lead for one of the work streams, I bore witness to so much of the intensity, focus, discipline, commitment, and tenacity brought by so many DFCI resources; the energy and effort only increased as we neared and entered the anticipated cutover, go-live, and stabilization phases.

 
The only visualization I can make to describe this in picture form is one of those fifty-foot waves die-hard surfers live for on the Oahu North Shore each February. For some of us, this Epic wave could be the biggest wave of our work lives, but we together brought the right amount of patience, skill, adrenaline, and fearlessness to allow us to successfully hang ten and ride this Epic Banzai Pipeline straight to the shore line!

 
Executing the Epic Technical Dress Rehearsal required a lot of that adrenaline and energy to effectively complete on time, and it was just one small piece of the Epic implementation puzzle. The team, as did all of the other work-streams, did a great job of rolling up sleeves and getting the job done, often with measurable cost and sacrifice, some personal. It’s hard to find anyone at DFCI who didn’t sacrifice time with friends or family to make this Epic project a huge success. Many of our co-workers not working directly on the Epic project picked up a ton of slack, as did our families when we were absent from home and working late more often than not. Collectively, we all did whatever was needed to make this Epic project a success.

 
Along with sacrifice came reward, too. Projects are like that, usually resulting in positive unintended and unanticipated results. If we’ve learned Epic, we’ve learned new skills and acquired new knowledge. New work teams, if only temporarily, were formed from a collection of Dana-Farber, Partners, and consulting pools. We created new friendships, new working relationships and likely lots of memories to look back on long after Epic has become second nature to all of us. It’s been hard but it’s something to be quite proud of.

 
Things have begun to quiet down. Now what? The work-day hours needed to complete critical tasks have greatly tapered, teams are disbanding and resources offloading, evenings and weekends are being reclaimed, the dog recognizes me again, the project adrenaline has worn off.

 
I feel great about the project’s outcome to date, but I can’t believe it. I feel a little deflated, maybe even a little empty. I’m not living and breathing Epic anymore. It’s a weird blend of triumph and sadness. It’s not like I just sent my first-born off to college, or maybe it is a little similar? What???

 
Ending an intense project, even a successful project, is a little like running into a wall at 100 mph. The activity and energy needed to get to go-live is super-human and in a crescendo moment…relative quiet.

How does one move on past “done,” now that one of your primary driving forces is over, and get through post-project deflation?

 
1. Celebrate the achievement…then rest up and re-inflate!

 
2. Debrief, reflect on what went well and what didn’t; lessons learned are great to take with you for the next big project that comes along. Life is full of them!
3. Once re-inflated and rested up, ask yourself “what’s next?” and get inspired for success yet again!
4. Once you know “what’s next,” give yourself the right amount of time to plan the new project, a great way to start off on the right foot; planning is a PM’s must-have in his or her tool kit!
5. Keep in touch with a few of those great new friends you’ve made during this Epic project. You’ve probably got a lot of good war stories to share for some time to come!