You know that moment when you check your huge to-do list and realize there isn’t enough hours in the day to do everything, and just then you receive an email with a new important, urgent task?
Well… most likely, that guy from your project team who didn’t deliver on time (again) is in the same situation.
It’s an extremely frequent scenario, especially in cross-functional initiatives, where people are involved in one, two or even three projects and also have to deliver their “job description”, business as usual tasks.
What can we do in this case?
First of all, we have to discuss these situations. And I’m not talking about complaining to each other over coffee.
Second, we have to work towards a solution and, because we’re in this together, everyone has to contribute: the colleague in question, his manager and the PM.
If you do that, you’ve already completed an important step because:
Everything starts with the intention to do something about it.
Not everything can be solved immediately, so don’t expect that: organizational habits are difficult to change. But you will gain awareness and find understanding if certain tasks are delayed, which should reduce the level of stress.
ATTENTION: to have a busier schedule from time to time is one thing, but if this is the way you always work, you might actually suffer from total lack of planning and you will only manage to “put out fires” day after day.
