Fighting Project Fires: A Survival Guide for Leaders

You’ve been given a project in flight and everything’s on fire. It’s not clear if this started as one big fire that grew even more out of control, or if this started as lots of little fires that were left unattended and they grew until they merged into the blaze you have in front of you now.

You stand in front of this roaring hellscape of a blaze, wheeled out as the new saviour, with a garden hose in hand and a bucket of sand.

How do you tackle something like this?

Lessons from firefighters

First things first, what’s the threat to human life?

Who in the team is under pressure, who’s taking more heat than they can cope with? Whilst you might ‘need’ the person in the team who is making most headway, if they end up leaving the project because they felt like every problem was landed at their doorstep, you’ll be in a worse place.

You might need to remove your best performer from the project for a while.

There will always be people damage from a blaze of a project - work out where it is and make that your number one priority.

This will also show the others in the team that you look after people. It will make them know that if it gets too much, you have their back. It will make them commit a little bit more - and you’re going to need all of that as you tackle the fire.

Don’t own all the problems

You don’t see the chief firefighter personally involved in every decision. You can’t tackle a blaze like this with one person. You need a team.

If you are going to make all the decisions, you’re going to be moving slower than the fire and you will lose.

Your job is to mobilise your team. Get them to take responsibility and authority. Only when your team are tackling the fire with you do you stand a chance.

You have to let your team know that it’s OK for them to make decisions - it’s even expected of them to make decisions. You have to back them when they make the wrong call and you have to keep encouraging them to make calls.

You can’t do this on your own.

You don’t have the luxury of focusing on one area only

It’s tempting when your project is on fire to pick one area and fix it up. It makes us feel like we’re making progress.

Except this won’t work.

When a fire is raging, you don’t put all your efforts on getting the fire in the kitchen under control, only to lose the building next door too.

You have to focus on everything. You have to make sure that nothing is getting worse. You have to start by containing the blaze.

This is why you need a team.

You have to put the standards and disciplines in place, across the board. But you’re not looking for perfect at this stage, you’re just looking at containing.

For example, let’s make sure the work we estimate to complete next week, gets completed. We’re not going to fix all of our estimates, but let’s start by making sure we’re not getting worse.

Now go do the same for risks, issues, dependencies, governance, budget, timescales, planning, decision making and all the people issues.

Make sure to get your feedback loops in place quickly so you can see what’s working and what isn’t.

What’s fueling the fire?

All fires need fuel.

Is there a wind blowing that’s fanning the flames? Is there an accelerant present that’s intensifying the heat? Is there a big pile of dry scrubland helping the fire grow?

Where’s the fuel in your project fire?

The fuel could be a person - is there someone or a group of people making this worse than it could be? The fuel could be another project - are the needs of another project heaping more fuel onto your project? The fuel could be a belief - is there a belief that this has to be done by a set date and that’s fanning the flames?

You can’t get a fire under control without removing the fuel. Find out what the fuel is and remove it. That will probably need really difficult conversations with sponsors and stakeholders. You’ve been brought in to fix this thing, not to move the goalposts. But if you don’t remove the fuel, the fire is going to keep roaring no matter how good you are.

What’s the strategy to tackle this thing?

If you’ve got this far, then you have a team of people with hoses pointed in the right places, the fuel has been removed and there’s no danger to human life. The fire is not growing any more, the problems are not getting worse any more.

Well done getting to this point.

But there’s still a huge fireball out there. It’s just not getting worse. Sure, it’ll burn itself out if you leave it, but you probably don’t have the luxury of time that would need. It’s time to start fighting back.

I always start with outcomes. Once the fire is under control you need a plan. The outcomes are your plan. What is your north star? What are you here for? What are the outcomes you’re trying to achieve. Get those defined and your plan to tackle this fire is set.

If you need more help defining your outcomes, register your interest in our webinar that will show you a template and a process to use to bring outcomes-focus to your projects: www.kinesis.co.nz/introduction-to-outcome-roadmaps