Suyin Aerts
July 13, 2018

Share your work in progress with the team

As a trained Project Manager I came to the conclusion already during my studies that every projects stand or falls with the people working together on the project and the way they communicate with each other. But to fonction as a team you should get used to share your work in progress with each other so the decisions you make are more efficient. It is a bit as working in layers, a designer for example should share his work in progress and not only communicate when he or she feels extremely confident about the work. Because if you do not share some risks are rising

  • The rest of the team is not aligned and that might end up affecting their perception of the entire project idea.
  • The rest of the team is not aligned on how things will fit into the larger project structure. Their feedback will require you to go back to the starting point.
  • The rest of the team will be unable to fully agree without understanding the rest of the flow.
  • Future decisions will largely impact the first ones. That high maintenance effort will progressively increase.

Instead of spending two entire weeks for example in trying to deliver a completely finished product, what if you tried to deliver your work in layers?

It doesn’t matter where you want to start. But do it in layers.

Share your progress every day, sometimes even every couple of hours.

Work-In-Progress

One of the biggest benefits of that approach is keeping a birds eye view on the entire project.

If your stakeholders, your manager or your client wants to see where you’re at, you will never have nothing to show. There will always be enough work to look at and trigger a fruitful discussion about. There will always be time to course-correct your work. There will always be time to adjust the project plan.

Trust your peers. Get used to sharing work in progress. If they are smart, they will understand you’re not sharing something unfinished because you’re incapable of finishing it; you’re doing it because you’re senior enough to understand how to better utilize your time.

Because the time that a scope does not move during a project is far behind us.

Staying creative and becoming more and more flexible, that is the challenge nowadays. And if you do not communicate with the team you will not reach the success you deserve. Handtekening Suyin (1)
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