Some ideas to help you explain to your project manager why things just do not happen by themselves

You can't always get what you want


Result is not something guaranteed, not something you can count on, no matter what. Result is something you can get, if you are lucky and all the conditions are in your favor, and you can focus, and you are prepared to invest some extra effort, if you, despite all the desperate measures, run out of your resource.

I observed that planning is often done without even attempting to check if the goal or its parts are really feasible. The industry seems to be forming this habit of not questioning the task unless problems are too obvious. They pay you for doing something. And that means there's no way back, because some other people have already committed to do it, so now you have to provide a solution to support their commitment.

This way of doing things is not very helpful when it comes to planning, especially if area is not sufficiently familiar.

False expectations

Many factors play into false expectations, for instance:
-- positive bias,
-- being cynical enough to take risk at someone else's expense,
-- mere desperation and
-- certain motivational books that slightly overdid their job.

But the most important thing you need to remember about false expectations is that you are never going to get what you want. That's the thing with false expectations. Usually when expectations start to show their false nature, management starts to panic, weekend work becomes normal, and when simple appealing to your inner hero fails to work out, various types or pressure are applied. Question is, do you want to be a part of it?

Roughly people can be divided into those who get off on the thrill of an ongoing catastrophe and those who prefer to see a result (and focusing on a result also makes you care about its price). In case of false expectations the former win, cause they gain what they want even if a project goes out of the window. Unless false expectations are corrected and measures are taken to adjust to reality the latter will fail dramatically.

From an idea to an artefact

Creating new things is hard, because it makes the system change and adapt while the system's own interest is to stay put (which is characteristic of a system). This is also why there is very little number of successful cases relative to the number of failures. And it's not always easy to decide if something happened because of your efforts or despite your efforts. And the role of luck is also very important, both good and bad.

Basically, to get a result you need to consider three primary groups of factors:
-- luck (aka external influence, positive and negaive risks mainly out of your control);
-- resource (aka your energy and your tools of totally different kind that allow you to stay alive and act);

-- focus and (most likely) hard work.

Your brain needs to keep focused to help your ideas evolve, and your decision making becomes of a better quality. Brainwork is a bit like building a multi-storey house that can only be finished if it is done non-stop. If you interrupt the process, the storeys will begin to disappear, so you will have to start over. Like I said, result is never guaranteed.

Restoring your connection with reality

One way out of the conundrum is to relate expectations to reality. And it can be achieved by doing a thorough diagnosing of the project. Thorough, by the way, does not mean too long, too complicated or unaffordable. Being a person who strongly depends on the job for income, and at the same time hates the idea of spending the whole life on meaningless excrutiatingly hard work, I start each of my new project assignment with assesment of its health. It is relatively easy. All you need to do is to setup several inteviews with people who are informed enough, and have them answer the questions of your questionnaire.

The best approach is to let your interviewees speak freely, only correcting them if the talk really gets off the topic. It is important because we are looking for an insider's point of view, the way they emphasize things, and what they emphasize. We are looking for things that hurt them, what they take their pride in. And this is the most valuable piece of information you will ever receive about the project. 

I've been using my questionnaire for some time now, and I found it very useful for getting a big picture, risk analysis, pinpointing resource deficiencies and factors that drain those resources. Essentially, it takes most of the guesswork away and replaces it with professional and conscious activity. It gives you awareness of the causes and the effects at work.

Managing your attention

Another way out of conundrum is to keep focused. Focus helps to keep the goal in sight, and to have that self-dissolving house of creation get built. And it also helps you to make that final breakthrough, when the critical mass is reached. Here is a story for you. 

Long ago, far away, I went to a training where they had us break wooden boards with our bare hands. There were five boards, first one went to pieces to a group's applause, second followed it, so did the third and the fourth. And there was mine. The moment it was my turn to break a board, the things stuck. Stupid board did't even crack. The audience got awfully silent. It was the last hour of the last day, and it was supposed to end spectacularly. And there was I who spoiled the whole thing. 

The trainer let me sit back, broke the board himself and offered me the pieces as a kind of reimbursement. As if those pieces could make up for the shame it caused. Something went very very wrong, you could feel it in the air. And the trainer decided to give me a second chance. I tried again once, twice. I was trying to concentrate despite everything, especially my shame. And then the world just blinked like a photocam shutter, and suddenly the pieces of a board were flying apart. 

The audience went beserk with applause. And I got the best lesson on focusing in my life. I've been keeping that board for about fifteen years now. And all these fifteen years I continue to get confirmations, that focusing is crucial if you need to achieve something, to create something, to get somewhere. All these are equally applicable to your project work.

Being lazy and slow

This is mostly everything I have to say on the subject of things not happening for themselves. But there is still something left to add. Don't rely on hard work (overtimes, weekend, that kind of hard) too much, or rather don't rely on it at all, full stop. Unpredictability and resource outage are too normal a thing if you are making something. These things do not need your help to happen, so don't break your camel's back before its time.