This is a managerial topic, as in how to get your team to work more effectively.
Early in the managerial career, the training is about securing resources, practicing planning skills, and keeping things organized. On any day, I would be happy to take a solid manager who knew how to do these. In fact, many spent their entire managerial career honing their skills on them. These are the people who knew exactly how to do thing right:
Let’s have a through requirements written down, design it properly, think through all ramifications, reviewed it with domain experts, implement it with high disciplines, QA the hell out of it, and not ship it until we are absolutely certain that all requirements are met.
Sadly, they also spent years hoping that one day he or she get to do a project with all of the above. He or she will die a happy person knowing The Perfect Project really exists. Most of them retired sad, defeated, and sour. There is always something wrong the prevented them to do the project right. Someone would screw up the whole thing. “Had that guy give me one extra month, I would have… could have… should have…” Regret. It bites.
Face it. Everyone has learned the lessons from IBM on how to do System/360. You compete with hundreds who have also read the Mythical Man-Month. They knew how to do things that was taught. If you are merely doing the same, you stand no chance winning. You might as well just pack your bags and go home. Today, to win, you must be faster, cheaper, and better. In fact, you need to do that just to survive.
It is about taking the right risks and synchronize the whole team behind the choice. Once you have done that, you created an unique, and hopefully effective, competitive edge against others (since they chose other risks).
So what are the risks?
- Commercial failure: lost sales, missed IPO window, reduced income.
- Regrets: that you made the wrong choice.
- Damaged personality credibility: you did not delivered as you promised.
- Damaged legacy (resume factors): that you wouldn’t have anything to show for and couldn’t land your next dream job.
- Lost of peer respect: that everyone would know that you skewed up.
And fear is the emotion reacting to these risks. It cannot be reasoned with. The only way we human being know about dealing with emotion is to talk about it. The reaction to fear drive people to make different choices. Each member of the team would optimize differently. Although the project will still get done, since you are a good managers, it will not win, since other teams would have done it the same.
The most effective way to combat fear is to gain control over risks. A slightly less effective way is to understanding it. So in the “talking sessions,” strategize and discuss each risk and find a way to accept them, mange them, and, at least, understanding them. It sounds like a regular planning session and should be organized as one. As the facilitator, you must pay attention to the fear part, not the risk management part and bring them out to the open.
Final note. This whole process begins with yourself and your boss. Are you aligned with your risk appetite?