When pivotal team members depart, it can feel like your project is on shaky ground. However, with the right strategies, you can keep the momentum going. Discover how to navigate these transitions and ensure your project's success, regardless of personnel changes.
The Great Resignation
Depending on the stats you choose, anywhere from 26% to 55% of U.S. employees are planning on quitting their jobs this year
- When a team member-or members-leave a project, institutional knowledge, productivity, and momentum can be lost
- It is important that companies have ways to mitigate these issues
Plan like it’s going to happen
Determine how you’re going to capture information so it’s widely available
- Inform the entire team at the same time so you limit speculation and rumors
- Think about how you’ll keep new and existing team members informed of the purpose of the project and how it fits into organizational goals
Perform triage if you need it
If you’re leading a team and a key member announces they’re leaving, don’t try to solve the issue on your own
- “Talent pop-up”
- Bring together HR and a set of cross-functional peers
- Look at the scorecard for the role and brainstorm about who could best fill the role
Build redundancy
Build in cross-training and backup for each key role on the team
- Have sessions where team members go out and find out more about the roles of team members in other teams
- Active knowledge-sharing sessions can help other departments share the best information to help new team members get started faster
Trust is an overlooked asset
Organizations should work to establish a culture of trust to help employees feel more comfortable with knowledge-sharing.
Always be succession-planning
Having a candidate to replace them at the ready allows you to plan some overlap and information-sharing time with the two individuals rather than losing time to decision-making about a replacement.
- You also want to have a crisp plan on what you want that transition to look like.
Create a clear and comprehensive information trail
Capture enough information about why decisions have been made and what the next steps are so the team has a roadmap to consult when they need to look back or forward
- Determine how often meetings need to take place for effective information-sharing and schedule them with appropriate team members
- Establish accountability for meeting agendas and attendance
- Use a uniform collaboration tools to clearly track project steps, progress, communication, and outcomes
- Set up a communication hierarchy so that everyone knows where the information can be found
