It is better to lead from behind and to put others in front, especially when you celebrate victory.

—Nelson Mandela

HABIT EIGHT

Celebrate project milestones

HONOR TEAM SUCCESS

Celebration is a great opportunity to communicate and get people involved in your project. A positive way to communicate with the three primary stakeholder groups—the customer, senior management, and the core project team (see Figure 1)—is to celebrate achievements of the project at each milestone. In fact, project leaders don't wait for a major milestone; they celebrate even minor project milestones. Celebration is a positive advertisement for the project, as it adds customer and executive management confidence and boosts team morale.

Celebration facilitates the opportunity for face time with key stakeholders, provides visibility to senior management, and helps the project leader become an approachable leader. Invite the customer, key suppliers/vendors (subcontractors), and senior management to project celebrations whenever appropriate.

On one major mining construction project, the project leader formally scheduled major celebrations in the overall execution plan itself. This motivated the team to reach those milestones as early as possible. Team members need to believe that the project leader (and by extension, the client) values their efforts for completing key milestones. This is especially important for projects where the time between project start and finish can span multiple years.

One can even use e-newsletters to communicate project accomplishments across dispersed teams. Such simple celebrations motivate the team to achieve milestones on schedule and are cost-effective. However, merely sending impersonal broadcast emails to announce the achievement of major milestones can actually have a demotivating effect on the project team.

On one multibillion-dollar project, the project manager decided to celebrate a major milestone by getting an engraved belt buckle and T-shirt for more than a couple of hundred project team members. She did that by sending an email through her secretary. The email asked employees to stop by the secretary's desk and pick up the items. This turned out to be pretty impersonal and the least effective way of celebrating success. It was a great lost opportunity for face-to-face communication and a positive advertisement for the project. More than 30% of the employees did not even bother to pick up the belt buckle and T-shirt.

Celebrate → Connect and Engage

The business strategy behind promoting this habit is to connect with all stakeholders and engage them toward project success. The idea behind celebration is to take a break from daily fire drills and inject a bit of fun into your project. The simple act of connecting with people helps improve team morale and environment. This does not have to cost much. Celebration, or an excuse for an all-hands get together can be as simple as a 20-minute huddle over cake and coffee.

There is a saying that success is found in the journey, not only on arrival at the destination. Celebrate big and small successes! Celebration helps you recruit people to your cause. It provides an opportunity to highlight the cool stuff you are working on or have done. For the project leader, celebration is the perfect storytelling time about how you have changed the world for your customer.