Right now, our team is busy delivering a series of projects for a client during a four-month shutdown. My team and I were excited for this opportunity to deliver a backlog of projects, mostly improvements to the aging building, ranging from infrastructure to architectural finishes. In the beginning, we thought we had plenty of time to plan, prioritize, schedule and execute this shutdown. Heck, who wouldn’t want almost a full calendar year to plan a large shutdown? But we soon found out that we would need each week of the year to complete our planning, and it would be a demanding project for our team.
Our goal for the first half of the year was to decide the work we (Arcadis) would deliver in our capital projects portfolio, along with other service providers. This goal was successfully met, and we were off to the second half of the project. Our second half goal was to finalize our construction procurement, provide the final schedule, and staff our project with necessary Arcadians to deliver for our client.
Throughout this rigorous planning and scheduling process, we were keenly aware of the risk of burnout among our team—especially as we headed into the delivery phase of the project—so we implemented a few processes to alleviate stress on the team.
One of our key strategies to prevent burnout was to use a mix of Arcadians with varying degrees of responsibility for the project delivery to ensure we had support systems throughout the planning and delivery process. This program of shutdown projects would not be achievable without the integration of multiple Arcadis project managers, cost managers and scheduling, compliance, and handover specialists, who worked as a team to manage the workload.
We’ve also implemented a rotating facilitator model for our meeting structures, so no one person feels like they need to document and solve all the problems that come up on a weekly basis. This also allows for cross integration between the projects to solve problems. The team has been hard at work putting out fires daily, attending three or more project meetings per week, updating costs and schedules, and finishing construction on these critical spaces for our client—a process that has been made more manageable because we are taking it on as a team.
Tips to Avoid Burnout on Client Projects
Our team has successfully implemented the following strategies to ensure we are not getting frustrated or experiencing burnout on projects:
- Escalating issues that cannot be resolved at the project level – utilizing line management and other program managers to provide support and solutions.
- Asking for team support – reaching out to our project management peers for solutions to problems that they may have dealt with before, such as equipment startups, room commissioning, documentation handover or change order management.
- Stepping away – there have been a handful of experiences during the shutdown that have caused our project managers undue stress. To counter this, our team has stepped in and allowed the project manager to take a break while we diagnose the problem and provide solutions to the client. Ensuring our team knows they are not alone has provided a boost for success.
- Setting work boundaries – in the madness of a shutdown and multiple meetings throughout the week, it may be tough to stay on top of what you consider your “day job” and other projects you are managing. It’s important to set work boundaries to ensure you are keeping a consistent work / personal time flow and balance. Set boundaries with the client early and often so they understand the expectations for project delivery and off-hours emergencies.
This shutdown project would not be possible without the team coming together, designating roles, planning, and utilizing our strengths. While we had almost a full calendar year to plan this shutdown, we used every bit of it for planning and integrating our team with our client’s expectations. As we enter our last month of project delivery, the above tips have certainly helped to keep our team on balance and to keep our sanity throughout the process.
