Long time no chat friends. I’ve been busy, and thats no excuse. I made a commitment to you all (all three or four) – so I’m going to write a bit this week about being overwhelmed. I think in the IT industry it’s pretty common – and it’s the nature of all of our jobs. Not sure why that is? Maybe it’s because there is some inclination that when “someone” knows how to operate their iPhone they are good with technology. Maybe we do it to ourselves by oversimplifying solutions to the people that lead us, so they automatically assume that everything is that easy.

I’m extremely lucky for two reasons –

1. I have a healthy and happy family
2. The people who are in leadership roles at my company are acutely aware of the challenges/complexities that we face implementing our product set

Regardless of where you work, we’ve all run into people that drive unrealistic expectations that cause teams to make mistakes and put people in impossible positions. One thing I don’t miss about working with customers directly on a daily basis (maybe the only thing) – is working with people like that. In my current role I can gladly say that we handle these challenges as a team, work as a team, succeed or fail as a team.

What if thats not the case for you? What if there is culture in your organization or specific people that put unrealistic expectations on you and your team? Worse, what if you have team members that put you in situations with impossible expectations so they can somehow lower your “stock” below their own?

Stop and think about it for a minute – When was the last time someone put you or your team in an impossible situation?

I’ve learned the hard way, working with hundreds of customers across almost every industry, that this comes down to a single thing.

Setting Expectations.

It can be difficult. Speaking up in front of leadership – having a hard conversation about what is possible and what needs to come next. I talk about this a little bit in one of my prior posts (LT needs an update….) but it is overly true. You need to set the right expectations of what is possible (and what’s not) right from the beginning. That’s hard. Be transparent.

This is hard for a bunch of reasons – maybe the person (or people) assigning you the task don’t know the level of complexity. Maybe someone has set extremely high expectations. Maybe you’re a rockstar and make everything look easy.

Whatever the case may be – for the sake of your job, and sanity – You need to do two things.

1. Be clear and concise on requirements – Might seem like a bad idea in front of leaders, but a simple whiteboard drawing (what are those? Does anyone still have an office?) to explain the high level problem and the path to green. Articulate the risks for each piece of the path, and the level of work. Summarize it into a level of effort that people can understand. Don’t dive down a technical rabbit hole that can be dismissed as too complicated, or tech jargon. Even the best technical leaders aren’t working in the tech day to day like you are – they don’t know the nitty gritty details. This isn’t the time to demonstrate how smart you are.
2. Be clear about the impact it has on the team – You need to immediately call out what is going to move/slip/be delayed based on taking on this extra work. The answer may be nothing – thats fine. Be clear on who’s going to execute on it, when they are going to do it, and how much of their time it’s going to take up. This is where you ask for more resources. There is no rule of IT that says you need to get everything done inside the current envelope of resources – push back – “Listen Boss, I’d love to do it – but we have a bandwidth problem. We either need to remove something (current tasks), or add something (more resources) to make these things happen.”

When was the last time you got something for free? Exactly, never. Don’t let your organization do something without an associated cost (either real in resources or realized in late tasks).

Being pragmatic about what you can accomplish and properly managing resources is not a negative – its quite the opposite. Show your leadership team you’re thinking about the entire workload – all the balls that are in the air. Be helpful, be willing to be flexible, set those around you up for success.

When you (or your teammates) work long hours to accomplish tasks that you’ve been overloaded with – no one wins. When you have to work on weekends and nights on a reoccurring basis to meet unreasonable expectations – no one wins. Work outside your work hours because you want to. Do it occasionally to put in that something extra for the team/organization. Be a team player – sometimes you are going to need to work nights and weekends – things come up. Don’t allow it to be the norm. Set the right expectations with your leaders and your organization about the amount and times your work.

Maybe my next article will be about how to set the right expectations at work – that seems like it might be hard… specifically if you’ve already set the wrong ones…

That’s all friends – until next time –

Cheers!