What If Your Project Goal Is… Well… Uhm… Dull?
03. Mar, 2010 
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If your project has a Big Hairy Audacious Goal, one that is life changing, one that makes your existence worthwhile, one that makes you feel powered up like an energizer bunny, it’s almost difficult to be not motivated. Being part of something bigger, using the coolest, latest, state-of-the-art technology will light everyone’s fire.
It’s what transformational leadership is all about.
“Transformational leaders motivate others by engaging their intrinsic interests (e.g., being associated with a particular cause) as opposed to engaging their extrinsic interests (e.g., salary or pay).”
But you don’t have to be the next Do-Gooder.
An awesome project goal makes things easier, but this also works for, uhm, lets say, normal projects.
Somewhere between the Millennium-bug and Euro-conversion projects, I worked with a small team creating interfaces between information systems. A lot of interfaces. Basically, the same work over and over again. It’s hard to stay motivated.
At this time XML was just discovered by tech marketers (let’s say it with me: HYPE!).
So, there was this way cool new tech, that everyone was talking about, and there we were, building interface after interface with our old school stuff.
Ping.
What if we could use the new shiny stuff to build our programs? Functionality would be the same, costs identical, but the development team could learn and use new technology. They would be excited to be involved in something “state-of-the-art”.
Instant motivation.
This story is not telling you to keep on switching technology. This story is telling you to be creative within your own circle of influence. You will be amazed about what you can accomplish.
Giving team members a role they desire, instead of what it says on their functional title.
Crazy.
For those “dull” projects, focus on the business value you are creating for your organization. This means you have to understand the business value, which is more than ROI (but that’s another blog post).
Knowing you are doing good for your Enterprise, your Customers, or your Co-workers should provide all the motivation you need to see your effort through.
Steve Romero, IT Governance Evangelist
http://community.ca.com/blogs/theitgovernanceevangelist/
Hi Steve, thank you for your contribution. Yes, I fully agree. Business value and illustrating where the project is in the bigger picture always help.
Agree, but as things are in IT.. its easier said than done. Its lot difficult when there are lot of Stakeholders who may not really see eye to eye with others or may not be really bothered about certain things add to the value. And it gets even more complicated when you work with vendors and offshore teams.
How to make sure everyone works towards same common goal?
Ambikesh, Project Lead, Oracle Financials