I recently covered a project for a colleague who took a 3-month sabbatical. It was a long enough time for me to need get fully immersed in the project, and not just “tide-it-over” like I would do for a 1 week vacation cover.
I started to get project emails. And I noticed something interesting.
Out of 250 emails I received that week for that project, 132 were sent with High Priority, and a further 57 with some variation of “URGENT” in the subject line.
A younger me would have dropped everything and dealt with all urgent requests, did some overtime, get them done ASAP.
But, actually, most of these urgent matters aren't urgent at all.
They're more often than not stuff someone forgot, who is now running up against a deadline, so they do their best to dump it in your lap. "Hot potato" style.
I used to be guilty of doing this myself.
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A lack of planning on your part, does not constitute an emergency on my part.
The Chaos of Urgency
The thing to remember for everyone working on a project, but most especially for the project manager, is that most people will work on multiple projects, and not just yours.
People have other responsibilities, other tasks, a life.
You (and your project) are not the most important thing for them. Ever. Get comfortable with that.
The mistake I see many project managers (and project participants) make, is that they create a culture of urgency across their projects. Everything should be done immediately, ideally yesterday. Before breakfast. Before coffee!
That's not urgency. It's a lack of planning.
Let's look at an example.
A project manager leads a highly complex project, with many moving pieces, and time constraints that are non-negotiable. For their project, they need to procure services and materials, and are working with a buyer in their company to facilitate those procurements. The planning is complex and the schedule changes often with new information, so the project manager hasn't reached out to the buyer in months, while doing their planning.
Now, suddenly, due to some new information or request that moves a deadline up, one of the contracts need to close immediately to not delay the project and cause ripple effects. Normally this takes an average of 2 weeks, but the PM is asking the buyer to expedite and issue today. This afternoon. Now!
That's once.
Now imagine you do that for the second one. And the third. And the fourth.
The first time the buyer might help you. Maybe even the second.
But by the third, they will start to ignore you. Because you keep jumping the queue.
They no longer trust your planning.
They no longer believe that you respect their time.
Because what you failed to consider, is that they have a list of 100 pending tasks to do that have nothing to do with you.
All you see is that you need their help.
All they see is your lack of respect, or competence. Not sure which is worse.
What you can do about it
Project planning is challenging, absolutely no doubt about it. And there will be things that you did not, or could not anticipate, that will require someone's urgent action.
However, you need to minimize those wherever possible.
By definition, if everything is urgent, nothing is urgent.
Don't let "urgent" become the new average.
Start tasks earlier than the last possible minute.
If you see a deadline approaching 3 months down the line, and you know the task/process you need to delegate to someone usually takes 1 month, start it earlier, not exactly 1 month before your non-negotiable deadline.
Communicate with people early.
Put things on their radar.
And when things are not urgent, say so.
I will literally write into my emails "no need to deal with this now, but I wanted to loop you in for your awareness, so we can chat about it when this comes up in a couple of months".
This way they can plan their tasks and time.
Conclusion
Your job as a project manager is to plan ahead, anticipate deadlines and problems, and get ahead of them.
If constantly everything is urgent for you, you are failing at that.
Try to break the culture of urgency.
Try to set expectations with project participants and stakeholders.
Lead by example, and only ask for urgency when it's absolutely needed.
And when it isn't say so.
In the example in the intro, it took me a few weeks to work through all the urgent requests. I called up every single one of them before dealing with theirs, to gauge the actual urgency, and made a priority list. During those calls I set the expectation, in a fun way, that if the thing actually wasn't urgent, then they should say so, or I would ask that they put future "urgent" things on my radar before they became urgent.
The last week before my colleague returned I received 280 emails. 1 had "URGENT" in the subject line, and 3 were marked high priority.
And I dealt with those immediately.
Your weekly actionable Tip:
Try setting expectations in all of your communication of what the urgency of your ask actually is.
If it's not urgent, say so.
Phrases like "putting this on your radar, but it's no urgent/it has some time/no need to deal with until 2 months from now", etc. will make people receiving your requests respect your planning.
Also, the very few times you actually do need something urgently, people will be much more likely to drop everything to help you.
Respect begets respect. Show some, Get some.
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