Dealing With A Project's Complexity In A Changing Environment

Communication

Anita Jaszewska

@letsleaveitempty

#change-management

#emotional-intelligence

#teamwork

#organizational-skills

#project-planning

#communication

#leadership

Dealing With A Project's Complexity In A Changing Environment

by Anita Jaszewska

In the talk titled "Dealing With A Project's Complexity In A Changing Environment," Anita Jaszewska, a programmer and psychologist, explores how individuals navigate emotional responses during changes in their professional lives. This discussion is rooted in the five stages of grief model, which illustrates how people deal with loss—denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance—and applies these stages to common workplace scenarios, such as code reviews or adapting to new feature requirements.

Key Points Discussed:
- Emotional Response to Loss: Jaszewska emphasizes that loss can occur in various forms beyond physical absence—like the disruption of comfort zones in software development.
- Comfort Zones: Developers often create systems and processes that provide comfort and predictability in their work. Stepping out of this comfort zone can evoke anxiety and resistance to change.
- Business Value vs. Code: Technology and coding are not the ultimate goals; the true aim is to deliver business value and solve problems, which requires adaptiveness in a rapidly changing environment.
- Emotional Roller Coasters: The discomfort associated with changes—such as scrapping a project or adjusting to new requirements—often leads to fluctuating motivation levels in teams, which can mirror personal emotional experiences.
- The Change Curve: Jaszewska discusses the change curve derived from the grief stages, suggesting that personal attachment to long-term projects complicates the acceptance of necessary changes.
- Lipton Model's Elements: She highlights five elements necessary for managing change effectively: vision, skills, motivation, resources, and a clear action plan. Each element addresses common emotional responses to change.
- Lack of vision causes confusion.
- Insufficient skills leads to anxiety.
- Low motivation results in resistance.
- Resource shortages create frustration.
- Absence of an action plan results in false starts.
- Communication Strategies: Effective communication is crucial throughout this process. Addressing friends, team members, or colleagues with "I" statements and open-ended questions can foster better understanding and collaboration.
- Personal Experiences: Jaszewska shares her journey in IT, illustrating the rationality of technology contrasted with the unpredictability of human behavior, emphasizing the need for understanding emotional responses in the workplace.

Conclusion and Takeaways:
Navigating emotional upheavals is a normal part of working in a dynamic environment. Accepting and recognizing one's feelings can significantly enhance one's ability to cope and find solutions. Effective communication strategies are critical, as they facilitate mutual understanding and help ease transitions during turbulent times. Ultimately, remaining calm and focused on the job at hand is vital.

00:00:15.599 Welcome to the talk! Let's welcome Anita, who is a programmer and a psychologist. It's such a nice combination!

00:00:21.180 Hello everyone, and that's exactly why I'm here.

00:00:28.080 Let me start by mentioning something you all might have heard about: the five stages of grief. It's a handy model that goes like this: first, there is denial, followed by anger. Usually, there's a phase of bargaining, which then leads to a phase of depression or sadness, and finally, it ends with acceptance of the new situation. You might be wondering why I’m discussing this. The truth is, we all experience losses every single day.

00:01:03.359 If you're surprised by this information, let's think about something that could happen to any of us on any given week. Imagine you wake up late on a Saturday morning, around noon, and realize you need to be at your family lunch in two hours. This lunch is actually for your mom's birthday, and you forgot to buy her a gift. So, you have just two hours to make it work.

00:01:14.880 You rush from home, jump into your car, and head to the nearest shopping center. It’s a Saturday afternoon, and of course, it’s extremely crowded. You can't find any parking spot. Your initial reaction might be, "No, no, no, this can't be happening to me!" That's denial. Then, you probably get super angry, thinking, "Why do all these people need to be here right now? I really need to get going!" After that, you might start bargaining, thinking, "Maybe if I drive around a couple of times, someone will leave, and I can grab a parking spot." However, that usually doesn’t happen, leading you to enter a state of sadness or depression, filled with catastrophic thoughts like, "I'm going to be late, my mom is going to hate me, I’m such a disaster in life." But a few moments later, you might just accept the situation, perhaps deciding to get out of the car and walk the extra 200 meters, telling yourself, "I’ll be 10 minutes late; no big deal."

00:02:19.440 This scenario illustrates that a loss doesn't have to be something physical. A loss can be anything from the expectation of a pleasant experience you had planned to a lost opportunity or comfort. Each time we go through any type of loss, we experience all of these stages. Sometimes they last just seconds, but other times, they can last much longer.

00:02:46.260 Think about something that many of us do daily or at least weekly: code reviews. The code review you might be asked to do may look like this: what are your thoughts? What’s your thinking process when you see something like that? Before responding, wouldn’t you go through all the stages, thinking, "No, I really don't want to do that. Why do people even make me do this?" Then, eventually, you accept it. In the end, you may just think, "Well, at least I can take a break after I finish it."

00:03:19.260 It’s a process of emotional roller coasters repeating over and over again in our professional lives. Now think about when you're asked to build a new feature. You see the feature requirements and panic because to the product person, it seems simple: "It's just a button!" Yet again, you might experience similar phases as this is a loss of comfort. Comfort is crucial for us. We build these comfort boxes, and once they are in place, we can automate certain behaviors and processes. Everything becomes predictable and manageable, which means comfort.

00:03:42.120 Stepping out of our comfort zone can be very uncomfortable. Following this, because of this comfort and automation, we can actually focus on what truly matters, what’s genuinely important. For 99%, maybe even 100%, of programmers, the most important task is to write clean code, as code is a core part of our job.

00:04:15.000 However, our work isn’t solely about writing code. Can anyone guess what our work could actually be about?

00:04:22.380 You're close, and any other ideas? Speak up! Yes, you're very close as well. Our work is truly about delivering business value. That business value often equates to bringing in revenue. As depressing as it might sound, nobody in a business context cares about code or technology; they just want to solve problems.

00:04:40.139 We live in a dynamic world, which means companies need to adapt and evolve quickly. They have to ship features to maintain current users and improve their offerings to attract new ones. Sometimes businesses must pivot their business models, which might mean scrapping entire applications and starting fresh. This demand for speed can be quite tough.

00:05:06.840 Every time we face a change like this, it disrupts our comfort box. In software, we usually don’t feel such emotional roller coasters when it comes to something like refactoring code. This is a regular task for us. We iterate on things, refactor, and apply patterns. These processes excite programmers, and over time we refine our code, seeing how things can be done better as we gain knowledge and experience.

00:05:16.200 We typically view this as an opportunity to grow—no one denies that it needs to happen. So, why are business changes so frightening? I think there are a few reasons.

00:05:39.240 The first reason is the difference in scale and the time we invest in something. When you think about finding that parking spot, you're only investing a minute or two, so you forget that initial roller coaster of emotions quickly. With code, the cycles aren’t very long, but if you’ve been working on a project for a year or two, the emotional attachment to it becomes significant. It becomes your comfort zone where you know everything inside and out.

00:06:17.640 Next, there are personal differences. We all adapt to changes differently based on our temperament and character. Some of us can adapt to change rapidly without much trouble, while others may struggle. Unfortunately, much of this adaptation is biological, which we can't change. That said, a big part of it is behavioral, which means it can be practiced. Through repetition in similar situations, we can learn to adjust more quickly.

00:06:39.180 Now, let’s circle back to the grief model I mentioned earlier. This model was created in 1969 by Dr. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross based on her work with patients with terminal illnesses. It has since been modified and reviewed. This model serves as a basis for the change curve used to explain typical responses to changes in organizations. Each change, even the best ones, often comes with the loss of something.

00:07:06.780 After experiencing the initial shock and denial, people progress through stages of anger, uncertainty, and confusion. The key difference in this model is what happens after people begin to deal with their situation and potentially experiment. If the experiments yield positive results, they generally opt to embrace the change and integrate it into their work.

00:07:48.420 I want to highlight an important detail regarding motivation over time. When we consider motivation on an axis, we see that it initially drops after a change but then rises again. Notably, the lines continue beyond the visual graph, representing an ongoing cycle. We complete one stage, but then we begin anew, cycling through various levels of motivation over time.

00:08:13.200 There's an alternative title for my talk: "Eat, Sleep, Code, Repeat." This cyclical nature of our experiences is an inherent part of life—sometimes chaotic, but it does happen in cycles. Now, let me offer you some context regarding my journey.

00:08:54.600 I’ve worked in IT for about 10 years, moving from a backend role to an engineering manager at a company called Job and Talent. During my time at this organization, I’ve managed multiple crucial projects. The revenue for the company is around two and a half billion euros a year, demonstrating the scale and the impact of decisions within such a massive business.

00:09:45.480 Let’s state this clearly: technology is easy, predictable, and rational. This part of the work is relatively straightforward. However, technology is developed by people, and people are not always predictable or rational. Each of us has different capacities to handle challenges, but the five stages of grief represent a universal experience.

00:10:15.540 Furthermore, I’d like to mention that even when we start at a high point in terms of motivation, the lows we experience during change still allow room for enthusiasm about our work and projects. This fluctuating motivation can often feel akin to an exciting romantic relationship, characterized by initial euphoria. However, when we reach a point of stagnation, a decrease in motivation can become overwhelming.

00:11:05.640 What if we're too stuck in the yellow zone of confusion? This state can lead to low motivation and lower productivity, making us feel lost and unsatisfied. It can even become a debilitating emotional state where we don't achieve the dopamine hits we need in our brains from completing tasks, eventually leading to a downward spiral or burnout. I have personally experienced this lack of internal motivation.

00:12:00.840 Seeing the impact this has on my team led me to dive into research about motivation, changes, and other psychological themes that can impact our work environment. The change curve I showed earlier is essential to acknowledge. We all go through these emotional fluctuations, and it's important to note that even though they may last for varying durations, they are part of the norm.

00:12:37.560 Understanding our feelings and normalizing them can help speed up the healing process. Now, the Lipton Model, which focuses on managing complex changes within organizations, presents five critical elements: vision, skills, motivation, resources, and a clear action plan. When incorporated effectively, these elements can flatten the change curve, making transitions less stressful.

00:13:25.680 Successful completion of a complex project in a changing environment often depends on addressing these five elements. Each missing component can lead to associated emotions. For example, without a clear vision, people become confused; lacking skills breeds anxiety; a lack of motivation leads to resistance; insufficient resources create frustration; and without an action plan, we face false starts.

00:14:03.480 Understanding these associations is vital, as it allows you to pinpoint what might be missing in your work environment. By naming the feelings you're experiencing, you can invariably identify issues and find solutions. Let’s say you're feeling confused; this could stem from a lack of understanding regarding the vision of your project.

00:14:50.100 In such situations, it’s crucial to ask questions. Don't hesitate to reach out to your manager or product manager for clarification. Creating an environment of inquiry not only helps you but also can be extremely beneficial for your team. Often, in meetings or discussions, one person may voice questions that lead to wider conversations that can inspire collective understanding.

00:15:40.440 If you’re feeling anxious, reassess your skills or consider that impostor syndrome can play a major role in your confidence levels. Seeking feedback from colleagues can help alleviate those feelings. Communication is always key, whether you're a junior or senior developer; it's reassuring for everyone when someone says, "I don't know" so that others can rally together.

00:16:30.540 Moreover, remember that 'done' is often better than 'perfect.' Even if you don't possess every single skill required, getting the job done is what counts. With motivation and its fluctuations, remember there are two types: internal and external. Internal motivations are innate and driven by personal satisfaction, while external motivators—money, praise, or perks—can encourage us too.

00:17:19.920 To help maintain motivation, create an incentives list for yourself. Write it down using pen and paper as several studies demonstrate that handwritten notes enhance our creativity and memory. Your incentives might range from achieving team goals to rewarding yourself with something you love, like ordering pizza or an evening with your favorite game.

00:18:12.420 Let’s focus on the resources during the execution of a project. Resource shortages could be anything from lacking software or hardware to inadequate time. You may require additional personnel in your team. Thus, accurate estimations for tasks are critical and serve as effective communication tools. The clearer you are about timelines, the better everyone involved can manage expectations.

00:19:07.560 Speaking of timelines, they carry significant weight in business contexts. It’s essential to adhere to them, as all projects run on specific schedules. Think of it akin to buying an apartment; having a nuanced plan is essential because your timelines can substantially affect prospects. It's better to set longer deadlines with clear communication than to keep prolonging due dates and disappointing everyone.

00:19:56.520 Lastly, identifying 'false starts' can be more about situations than emotions. If you find yourself in an unclear state early in a project, proactive communication can help you regain footing. Meetings should not be viewed negatively; they can bring about meaningful organization for setting deadlines and identifying tasks, particularly in planning sprints or similar activities. Don't hesitate to create action plans for yourself.

00:20:50.520 In regards to communication, remember the basics. Use "I" statements to express feelings, ask open-ended questions, and whenever possible, outline risks while proposing solutions. That structure will help other parties grasp your concerns more clearly, which can then pave the way for productive discussions.

00:21:36.840 These communication strategies can also be translated to personal life scenarios. For instance, instead of defensively pushing back on a request from someone close to you, clarify your feelings and present alternative solutions. This approach fosters understanding rather than confrontation.

00:22:20.520 In summary, navigating through emotional upheavals is entirely normal during changes—whether in personal life or work. As you acknowledge your emotional state and communicate it, you can pinpoint issues and act on finding solutions. Remember, effective communication is paramount; it can make the difference. And let me reiterate: when everything seems overwhelming, it’s essential to keep calm and remind yourself: it’s just a job.

00:23:34.320 Thank you all for your attention.

00:23:50.280 Before concluding, there’s a vital point about differentiating feelings. It’s often hard to distinguish emotions like anxiety and frustration, especially during intense moments. Recognize that emotions can manifest physically in our bodies. Anxiety can feel tense in your chest or stomach, while anger often shows up in your limbs. Understanding these signals can aid you in identifying your emotional state. Thank you for your kind words, and I’m glad the model I provided resonates with you!

00:25:01.680 Thank you, and I appreciate everyone’s insights. If anyone has further questions or comments about their experiences or how to approach these feelings in yourself and your team, I’m here to help!

00:25:56.160 Let’s continue learning from each other and supporting one another in this ever-changing environment.

00:26:10.560 Thanks once again for your engagement. Let's keep this conversation going!

00:26:53.640 Thank you all very much!

wroc_love.rb 2022