These old projects that pollute your productivity
Have you ever had to deal with an overflowing closet and not know where to start?
Have you ever felt the satisfaction of spring cleaning when you sort through your stuff and decide whether to keep it, donate it, or throw it away?
These two opposing emotions are what you can get out of cleaning out your... project list.
Indeed, many companies have a long list of projects, some open for several years, which parasitize mental space and waste precious time.
This may be the vaguely defined transformation project. Or the process automation project with vague outlines. People often know what the goal is, but the steps are not clear and the project often gets stuck at the analysis stage.
It lacks dynamism and momentum and remains at the stage of "this is really something we have to do someday", constantly put off indefinitely.
The longer it sits on this imaginary shelf gathering dust, the less enthusiasm it generates, both on the project team side and on the operations side.
Like that neon shirt from the 80s that you keep just in case neon comes back into fashion one day, this project takes up valuable space but isn't useful to anyone.
I'm not Marie Kondo but, along the same lines, I advise you to review all your projects and only keep the ones that "bring a spark" - that bring real added value and generate enthusiasm .
Let's be honest - if these projects were essential to the survival of the company, they would have been done by now. Rather, these are projects aimed at improving processes, sales or employee well-being. Yet the mistake companies often make with these projects is defining them vaguely, getting everyone to agree that it would be nice to "improve" something, and then constantly deprioritizing them due to “higher priority” subjects.
But, as these projects are still on the list, the company continues to include them in its reporting and to explain month after month in various committees why they have not started or why they have made so little progress.
Officially closing these projects will allow you to free up mental space, free up resources, and save those few monthly moments spent justifying their lack of progress.
Taken together, all these elements represent a real gain in productivity .
To increase productivity, clean up your project list.
Review this list carefully and only keep projects that provide real, measurable value and... that generate enthusiasm among the teams.
For what ? Because enthusiasm is often a great marker of the perceived value a project is expected to provide.
If you are the only one excited about a project, you may not have explained it properly to other stakeholders and need to better communicate the expected benefits.
It is also possible that the perceived value of this project by other stakeholders is much lower than what you perceive.
Once you've narrowed down your project list, act now. Don’t let these projects “age” again and quickly define key milestones to be achieved in a short but reasonable time frame.