How to Get Your Projects Unstuck
With worksheets and guidance on the three types of stuck
In an ideal world, we’d build a perfect road map, our schedules would actually be what we’d planned they’d be, and there wouldn’t be any disruptions to throw us off.
But in the real world projects get off track, and the more a project gets off track, the more likely it is to end up stuck.
These concepts are drawn from the award-winning Start Finishing and its companion workbook, the Start Finishing Field Guide.
If you’d benefit from a start-to-finish process to get more of your projects from start to finish, both books are available for sale from your favorite booksellers. You can also pick up the field guide ebook in PDF directly from us.
Why Projects Get Stuck
Sometimes projects get stuck; sometimes projects fail. That’s simply a fact of life in Project World.
Usually this indicates a misalignment somewhere between the project and some other aspect of your life (or several).
Here are some questions that might help you identify why this particular project got stuck in the first place:
Did you say yes too quickly when you were already overcommitted?
Did you charge ahead by yourself rather than asking for help?
Did a streak of easy wins unlock a new level of challenge that you weren’t ready for?
Did your idea not match your actual priorities and the projects that relate to your priorities won out?
Did you have an idea not a project (i.e., you didn’t commit to a plan)?
Did you get tripped up over the remnants of past projects that need to be cleaned up, archived, or trashed?
Did you have the wrong people on your team for the wrong reasons?
Did you need more time honing your skills or collecting your resources?
Did you have a bad handoff to someone else and are waiting on feedback or approval before you can move forward?
Did you have a beautiful plan that reality shattered in wonderful or terrible ways you couldn’t anticipate?
How Projects Get Stuck: Three Ways
Projects slip and end up stuck for different reasons; knowing how your projects get stuck helps you dislodge them when they’re stuck, and often can prevent them from getting stuck in the first place.
By identifying which type of stuck our project has succumbed to — cascade, logjam, or tarpit — and by applying the strategies in the accompanying worksheets (see below), you can more easily get unstuck and move your project forward again.