Lessons From The Pond For The Project Workforce
This is a posting in The Fish Pond Metaphor series by Ali Anani and Bas de Baar
As projects start and end within organizations the demand for employees fluctuates. It seems that in certain times the workforce is just too small to handle all tasks, and in slow times many employees are doing nothing. With change and with projects come the tidal movement of need of labor force. Most projects will be done in times of change, when economic forces are up or down. Times of stability don't call for much projects.
Hibernation: After Busy Times, Leave Them Alone
Photography by Akk Rus.
Businesses go in cycles and each cycle demands a different caliber of staff; like each season imposes different demands on fish ponds. Fish hibernate during winter and it is not recommended to feed them during hibernation. At water temperatures below 50 degrees fish become almost motionless, hibernating in the deepest and warmest part of the pond.
Businesses go into hibernation and for long spells sometimes. Do we expect employees to hibernate during this people? Some employees will have low resiliencies and will tend to hibernate any way. Fish hibernate for purpose.
Many fish pond managers make mistakes that are repeated by many business managers.
"During their hibernation period fish should not consume food at all. Too often an odd ball day occurs where the pond water warms a bit with a spell of unseasonable weather. The fish get a little active around the surface of the pond so their owners feed them. The net effect is when temperature returns to normal the fish begin to float on their sides on the pond surface in an attempt to process the food that their bodies cannot handle." (source)
Transient time may tempt some managers to make the wrong decisions and actually to kill their businesses. Employees are more stressed during change, during projects the intensity of work is increased. True project people know the cyclic effects of projects and take that into consideration. They go full throttle when needed, because they know they can rest later. Management should know: after busy times, leave them alone. Don't keep them busy with stupid tasks, give them leisure, pleasure and relaxing time. Everybody will win this way.
Recruit During Economic Winters
Photography by FiskFisk.
Before you can make use of employees, you first have to recruit them. Stocking your pond. Timing of populating a fish pond is a crucial factor for the survival of fish in a pond. Stocking a pond in mid-summer should be avoided. High water temperatures and low dissolved oxygen may weaken fish being transported. Sudden temperature changes can cause fish to go into shock and die. When stocking fish, transport water and pond water temperatures should be equalized by slowly adding pond water into the transport container. It is the conditioning of fish that adapt them to the new environment. Better still, is to add the fish to an experimental tank for some time before transferring them to the fish pond to ensure that the fish are healthy. An unhealthy fish is not expected to interact with other fish and its environment in a healthy way.
The economic conditions under which you are recruiting can have a large impact on the quality of the new employees. Fish can be conditioned into being adaptive. The conditioning of employees is not different and should follow similar steps. "I think that conditioning your employees to expect change, to live in an era of change, and to embrace it in a positive way rather than fight it, is an important theme in almost every industry," Marc Hebert, executive vice president of Sierra Atlantic, said.
These facts and the image provided by the Fish Pond Metaphor prompt us, the authors of this article, to propose a different recruitment and keeping pattern of staff. When business goes down it might be a better idea to recruit or keep staff that have been conditioned for hard times. Experiences in meeting suffocating problems are highly desirable in such situations. This conclusion is reinforced by the observation that the single constant in business is resistance to change. We are all creatures of habit and will continue doing the things that we are doing unless those habits are reformed in some manner. People who have the ability to survive hard times and business downturns are always needed because no business will avoid occasional lengthy downturns.
The idea of placing fish in a tank prior to their transfer to the fish pond suggests another dimension for time management. We need enough lead time to select the appropriate employees and to put them under test to monitor their healthiness and readiness for the job. Rather than adding employees directly to projects or business we may consider putting them first in a simulation chamber to monitor their behavior. Only candidates who perform well may be later added to the "work pond".
The key to successfully developing such a program is to follow a proven recruiting process for the positions you need to fill in a timely manner and in a way to prove that performance of recruits would meet future challenges.. Resist the temptation to omit steps, because shortcutting the process can shortchange your results.
Questions
These are two lessons we see in The Fish Pond. But what is your opinion on this matter?
- Do you hibernate or do your people get rest between jobs?
- What is the best time to recruit?
- How do you "condition" new employees?
Please share your thoughts and opinion. It is highly appreciated and helps us to make the material more valuable for everyone.
Ali Anani got his PhD in chemistry in the UK (1972). As of 1981 Dr. Anani got interested in applying scientific approaches to economic and social issues.
Bas de Baar works as a Project Manager for over a decade. Since 2001, he has been the editor of SoftwareProjects.org, a popular website dedicated to Software Project Management.
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Bas de Baar, blogging as "The Project Shrink", is taking his message to the International Project Management community with a vengeance: "Projects Are About Humans. Now Deal With That!" ... 
I have to relax after a time pressured project. Catch up with some administration, take a training, go to a seminar. That kind of stuff.
It is interesting to look at hibernation positively. I like the positive attitude of the article. The ideas are unfamiliar and people may resist them for this reason.
A Wonderful article, I must say. A great insight into project management, people management, grooming of teams and team members. I think this is a must read for all Project Managers and above management persons to understand what it makes to run a company and project successfully. Few of the lines directly hit the brain. I have not read an article more crisper than this. I am sure if this article is followed, there can be no failures in any of the projects.
Very rightly said – “Employees are more stressed during change, during projects the intensity of work is increased. True project people know the cyclic effects of projects and take that into consideration. They go full throttle when needed, because they know they can rest later. Management should know: after busy times, leave them alone. Don't keep them busy with stupid tasks, give them leisure, pleasure and relaxing time. Everybody will win this way.” - Generally in an organization, management does not tolerate idle persons, but if they read it carefully, they will come to know, every employee needs a hibernation time which if not provided will effect adversely to the running and forthcoming projects. Surprisingly we are doing the same for many years the same practice – by allowing teams/members to sleep at job when not at the peak of a project as we are well aware that once they jump into a project, and are on a remote site, they don’t bother about time and pay their full energy into completion of project in as best possible manner as they can. And probably that energy, zeal and feeling comes from that period when they are allowed to relax.
“Sudden temperature changes can cause fish to go into shock and die. When stocking fish, transport water and pond water temperatures should be equalized by slowly adding pond water into the transport container.” – how true it is – and this is what we do in our projects – A new entrant at any level is never burdened (leave aside “overburdened”), and is given ample time to prepare himself for the forthcoming project(s). Also the pond water (the already groomed members) are added in the team as pond water so that the new member does not go into “shock and die” state.
I slightly disagree to the line “single constant in business is resistance to change” as I believe there is another constituent to this as “another constant in business is change”, definitely resistance always comes where the change is, but if employees are recruited well before the project start time (in our case it is from 3 months to 1 year), and are given ample guidance (pond water) and time, it prepares them well to adopt both the constants.
“People who have the ability to survive hard times and business downturns are always needed because no business will avoid occasional lengthy downturns.” – I strongly agree to this, and that is why in our company, focus on retention of an employee is very high by providing him ample time to relax between the projects, by means of giving importance, by means of encouragement, empowerment, attention, satisfaction and opportunity to grow.
“We need enough lead time to select the appropriate employees and to put them under test to monitor their healthiness and readiness for the job. Rather than adding employees directly to projects or business we may consider putting them first in a simulation chamber to monitor their behavior. Only candidates who perform well may be later added to the "work pond"” – this is exactly we do and that proves by their long stay in the organization.
“…Resist the temptation to omit steps, because shortcutting the process can shortchange your results” – this temptation, I feel inherently happens in every organization, or project in case of time/work pressure, and gradually organizations learn the impact of this on their project failures. The day an organization builds this culture of resisting the temptation to omitting steps…in each of its employee, there is no way that any of the project fails.
Lastly answers to your questions:
Do you hibernate or do your people get rest between jobs? Yes we do, in the way explained above.
What is the best time to recruit? – 3 months to 1 year before the start of a project
How do you "condition" new employees? – by way of giving them time to relax, encouragement, empowerment etc. as stated above, in short by providing them an hibernation state.
Dear Jaideep,
We are absolutely encouraged by your heart-lifting remarks. An applied theory is the soundest theory and your rich experiences augment the application domain of our article.
You touched upon a highly important issue when you said "I slightly disagree to the line “single constant in business is resistance to change” as I believe there is another constituent to this as “another constant in business is change”.
We concur with your comment for we realize a constraint in one situation might not be the same constraint in different situations. This remind us of the Chinese proverb that states “A wooden barrel may be formed with staffs of uneven length; How much water it can hold depends on its shortest staff”. A constraint once fulfilled is not anymore the deciding constraint.
Raven (of Raven's Brain) made me aware of this nugget:
"In my experience, part of the formula for delivering incredible value on IT-centric projects is the quality of the team doing the work. Unfortunately, it seems that more and more projects are resourced using a talent pool concept where people are thrown together based on credentials without much regard as to their collective chemistry, which in turn does little to foster a winning team environment. Once the project is over, the players go on their merry way perhaps never to work together again. Thus, there is little emotional connection to the project, little or no buy-in by the "team" to the project or each other; in short no investment other than just performing assigned tasks. Is it any wonder that project costs are increasing and project successes decreasing? Imagine any sport where at each game a team was assembled based on talent (like all-star games) and not based on their ability to work as a unit towards a common goal: winning. Just like in the all-star games the quality of play usually is poor and the effort put out equally as unimpressive."
http://www.gantthead.com/article.cfm?ID=242178
I agree that all project managers and associates need to go into hibernation, after one project is over and another is started, due to following reasons:
1. We are not machines, so, we need a rest. a project can be very demanding. So everyone desires a rest before starting again
2. Minds put to work continuosly tend to lose efficiency, therefore our minds too need a rest
3. the hibernation period can be used for recreation, idea gathering and learning. if we go on with projects all the time, there is no time to learn
4. after the hibernation period we would welcome a new project more enthusiastically. if we continue one after the other, those who are in the project will think "Oh! No! we just didn't have breathing space, and they are starting again!
so, there are my views. and thanks a lot for sharing your work with us.
Jaideep has given us a great comment and new insight, so I guess I will be interviewing him
I hit submit a little too fast
… all other comments are also very appreciated of course! Many thanks. Also to the people that commented by sending me an email.
Cheers
Bas
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