Patience may be a virtue, but it’s not always in a BPM project. A typical BPM project has a lot of moving parts, decisions, deliverables and reviews. Usually project managers are operating as change agents for the project. This involves a combination of cajoling, communications, nudging, pushing and pulling for the team and those affected by outcomes.
When impatience hits your team members and stakeholders consider the following before shutting them down.
- Are communications on the project status up to date?
- Do you have a bottleneck you didn’t recognize sooner enough?
- How often are you informing members of status changes?
- Do you have a good change management and review process in place?
- Are other teams members late in deliverables or reviews?
- Have other projects or programs moved resources?
While you may not be able to explain away each situation, you can integrate the reasons for the real or perceived delays or outcomes into your project plan. Even bad news needs to be communicated. In fact, it’s often even more important bad news is delivered in a timely and sensitive manner.
