How to Ensure Teams Understand Complex Projects

If you’re managing a team on a complex project, you likely have a lot of moving parts. Team projects become complex because there is uncertainty and unpredictability to take note of. That is why team collaboration on a mutual understanding is vital.

Without a team that works well together, and understands the scope of the project, even the easiest tasks would have plenty of problems being completed effectively. If you want to ensure your team understands complex projects and guarantees a positive outcome, read on.

Outline The Problem and Goal

A team cannot be expected to understand a complex project if they aren’t given the relevant details. With any major important task, you need to identify the problem that needs solving. Think about the project from every angle and outline what the end goal is. Once everyone is clear on the specifics it’s time to delegate responsibilities. This means that you need to employ people who are ideal for each of the positions.

The next step is to set clear objectives including time frames in which components of the project need to be completed. Be sure to set deliverables that each team member needs to reach and include time for feedback. By allowing each member to manage one task, they are forced to focus. Have each team member responsible for the outcome of the proceeding task, so that they all share the accountability of the overall project.

Use Visualization Correctly

Images and other visualization techniques can be very effective for some people. It helps them to better comprehend the situation and understand it on a larger scale. Some people are also just visual learners. To ensure every one of your team members understands complex problems, get a whiteboard and eraser out and start brainstorming ideas.

List the main project in the center of the board and work outwards to identify all the major components that must be included. This is the basic idea behind a concept map, that allows you to generate ideas and organize information. Use a concept map creator to visualize complex team concepts and projects digitally.

Create More Visibility

While using visualization correctly is important, it’s also crucial to create more visibility within the project. It can be easy for teams to become overwhelmed with the project details when navigating complex challenges, which can in turn make it difficult to move forward. It is a good idea to adapt project management tools that work well for you, your team, and your clients. Pick a tool that makes it easy for everybody who is involved in the project to stay informed and up to date with what is happening at any given time. You should use a tool that can be your single source of information, providing everybody with real-time insight into activities and decisions that are relevant to everybody on the team and otherwise involved in the project.

Document as Much as Possible

A complex project can be broken down into a range of easier to manage smaller projects. However, if the individual pieces and how they relate to the project as a whole is not clearly documented, it will still appear very complex to everybody involved. Providing clear and up to date documentation is the best way to prevent this issue. It will make sure that everybody is aware of their clearly defined role and deliverables, and ensures that the overall vision for the project is available to everybody, rather than simply being inside the project manager’s head. This can also help for when somebody new needs to join the team at any stage of the project, with clear documentation making it easier for them to see where the project has been so far and where it is headed.

Continuous Clarification

When the team doesn’t have a clear understanding of the ‘why’ of the project, it’s harder to reach success. Making sure that everybody understands why the project is being carried out will add clarity to the project goals, allowing the whole team to find new ways to innovate and add their own expertise to the mix. Project managers tend to place more focus on delegating tasks, but it’s also important for them to make sure that their team is fully aware of the bigger picture when it comes to the project. Delegating tasks without consistently clarifying and clearly defining the goals involved will only make it harder for the team to succeed.

Be Flexible

When it comes to complex projects, change is the only thing that you can count on to be constant. No matter how great your plan for the project is, you can bet that it is going to change at some point. Because of this, everybody involved with a complex project needs to be flexible and willing to adapt. Make sure that you are thoroughly planned for any pivots, adjustments, and the unknown as early as possible during the project process, and set up processes and strategies that allow your team to easily respond to any changing demands. When it comes to good project management, there is no such thing as over-communication.

Encourage Positivity

Team members that support each other in complex projects are more productive. If you want your team members to understand a complicated project, provide an environment that encourages positivity. This means also creating a space where your team can work together in a stress-free space. Positive employees are more productive and tend to take their responsibilities more seriously.

You should also incorporate some form of reward system. Each time a task is completed on time and successfully, the team receives an incentive. It can be in the form of tangible or non-tangible items, as long as it encourages them to carry out the project efficiently.

Understanding complex projects is all about looking at the finer details that may affect a positive outcome. Team members need to be provided with a space to learn and focus if they want to understand the role they play in the overall result. If each member is responsible for the outcome, they are more likely to concentrate and learn everything that they need to fully understand the scope of the project.