The Unfinished Project
Introduction
Where do I start?
That’s the question I seem to come to way too often when I try to start building on my own ideas. It’s almost like a loop that never evolves.
Here’s how it usually goes : I find myself searching online for something for about a 15 minute window, get distracted by another task or goal, then end right back up with nothing after hours of starring at a screen. It’s frustrating.
You ever get so inspired by something that you start running with it until you remember you have to pay a bill or search with what seems to be a disorganized puzzle of information. My favorite outcome in these scenarios has to be when I get so overwhelmed by everything that I literally start searching for mental illnesses centered around focus disorders because I clearly have to have one now.
Sure as much as I’d like to point blame on something or even someone, the real problem comes down to some form of fear. It’s not the kind of fear that you feel when you’re about to get ran over by a car. However, I seem to respond exactly that way by running in complete chaos in my mind before running off the road entirely.
Actually, I’m pretty tired of hearing that it is FEAR! Even from myself. Seriously, is that really helpful? Like maybe I’m just overwhelmed–anxious. I mean c’mon, this stuff is a lot to ingest. Either way, I don’t think labeling my reason for avoidance has got me very far in all my ideas. Instead, it’s just made me see myself as an endless project that probably needs to be addressed first before I can begin to start any personal ventures.
None of it makes sense though. What I find so interesting in all this questioning really is how someone like me, an IT project manager for a fortune 500 company, is paid to lead and organize stakeholder’s ideas and bring them successfully to life. Like how? Why can’t I do this for me?
I realized quickly that if I wanted to start to make progress on anything, I needed to start seeing myself differently—a stakeholder invested in all this—and that is where this all starts.
The Stakeholder
Part I
As easy as it might seem to say, “I’m the boss” so I now make all the decisions here, it can actually be a very difficult role to embody especially if you’re not a decisive person. So why would we start here if this is the very reason why we’re unable to move our ideas along in the first place?
Great Question! That’s because at this point in the project you’re actually not expected to know anything about how to make this vessel run! We’re just making a demand and it’s completely acceptable for it to be all wrong.
The person in this position has lots of amazing ideas but doesn’t really understand how it’s all going to break down. It’s actually not their job to know.
Actually, I find that in most instances, the stakeholder may not even know what they really want or need until it comes down to understanding resources and having guided conversations about these topics with a project manager. This is why starting here makes sense.
Taking on the perspective of seeing yourself as a stakeholder, makes it acceptable for you not to know what all needs to happen to make it all happen. It gives you the freedom to say, I don’t know how we’re going to do it, but this is what we want. The pressure comes off at this stage and all you really need to do is state your demand: “I want [THIS]”.
Remember, the stakeholder may say they want something but really be completely confused about what they need/want. So if you take a first stab at trying to state what you want and it seems confusing or wrong, that’s 100% okay.
The part that is important to mention is that once you’ve created your best guess at what you think you want and need, your demand can now be broken down into organized pieces using project management concepts and you can finally start making incremental steps towards finishing that unfinished dream project you’ve been holding off on for years—no experience needed.
Let’s get started!