How Vulnerability Can Be Used When Beginning New Projects

New projects can bring a mix of excitement and trepidation. If the project is something your organization has never done, there can be a variety of opinions on how the project should be done and different visions of the outcome.

I have found that it is helpful to bring the team together for a brainstorming meeting to begin a project that not only generates ideas on how to accomplish the project but also discusses the feelings they are having about the project.

In a recent project, I asked my team to think about any fears or uncertainties they were feeling and to write them on post-its (sometimes old-school tools work best). After they were done, everyone put their post-its on the wall, and we organized them into similar themes.

What we found is that some of us had the same fears, like, “What if no one signs up for our new program?” This helped the team see that they weren’t alone in their fears and helped them bond together to find ways to approach the items that were causing unease.

Other fears revolved around things that could distract them, including other projects that could get in the way or the endless ideas that were trickling down to us from other staff members and volunteers within the organization. There was no shortage of ideas and programs we could offer for this new project.

We took the time to go through each of those fears and to identify solutions or plans to stay focused. That included setting boundaries. This can be a tough one, when many people have become people-pleasers and want to seem agreeable. We could thank people for their ideas and put them in a parking lot to assess when we have completed our priority projects. We knew if we tried to do too many programs at one time, none of them would get enough attention to be successful.

We also committed to touching base throughout the project to address anything that could come up that we didn’t expect and to see if there were any other fears or uneasiness that developed or disappeared throughout the project.

We also found it important to define what success would look like for this project, so we were clear what we were working toward. We wanted to hear from the team what they would need to feel that the project was successful and that they were part of an impactful program.

There were the obvious measurements of success, like the number of people who attended the programs - but, we also saw a varied response from our team as to the number that made them think they were successful. That opened up a conversation around how many attendees we needed to feel we had made an impact, what number was realistic and how many attendees we would need to make the programs viable. Also, we would want to see if participation in the program made the attendees more likely to renew their membership.

Beyond the numbers, team members expressed many other ways a project would feel successful. These included: participants had fun, the team communicated well and met deadlines, and participants formed meaningful connections with each other.

For items involving numbers, we talked it through and came up with final numbers we could all agree on, and we listed out all the other factors we agreed would make us successful. We brought these to our check-in meetings to keep ourselves on track and make any adjustments as needed.

This project kickoff method helped everyone feel heard, got fears and challenges out on the table to address and gave everyone a clear picture of the success we are working toward. The vulnerability of the team created trust with each other and led to better communication and teamwork.