One of the biggest evils that currently exist in practically all areas is stress.
Many people get sick, unmotivated, depressed, etc. for living extremely busy lives, with many responsibilities, and mainly because of a lot of pressure.
When we think about the project area, I would say that stress is the main problem faced by practically everyone who works in this area.
In this post, we will talk a little about this complex and difficult topic, as well as talk about ways to manage it better.
How are SAP projects?
Before starting, I need to contextualize a little what my vision of the project area is.
I have been working as an SAP Consultant for over 10 years and I have always worked in the project area, that is, I was always hired to start a project (with a team), execute it and deliver it on the date agreed with the client.
In the case of the SAP market, the most common is for the customer to hire a consultancy to manage and administer the resources. I always work for a consultancy.
Generally, the projects I participate in are from global companies that have branches in Brazil.
These companies need to include Brazil in their global system, and that is why they carry out the project.
The main focus of the project is to adapt all the company’s local processes to global processes (systemically), impacting as little as possible the existing solution that works in all branches around the world.
Brazil is one of the most difficult countries in the world to implement SAP due to great tax complexity. (Projects in Brazil are always challenging and fun).
The main challenges of this type of project are:
- Project scope is usually closed by the consultancy’s commercial team (90% of the time it is very far from reality).
- Difficulty in finding professionals with English (Brazilian Market).
- Excess of activities.
- Language barrier and time zone.
- Project methodology (some clients are very creative at this point).
- Team Turnover
- Politics
As we can see above, for a project to be delivered with the expected quality and deadline, the challenge is enormous.
And of course, with so many challenges, our dear friend is present 24 hours a day: Stress.
Main project players
Within an SAP project (which I’m using as an example), we have several stakeholders that are fundamental to the project. I will talk briefly about each one and their respective profile (to help with understanding).
Project Manager (Consulting and Customer)
I would say it is the most difficult position within the project. Generally, we have 2 managers, 1 on the client-side and the other on the consulting side.
The main job of both is to make the project go ahead and be delivered on the dates expected by the company’s board.
In addition, the consulting project manager is also responsible for managing all consultants, programmers, etc.
It is a very difficult position, because in addition to “managing”, the Manager needs to pass status to the entire board, manage customer expectations, be the “psychologist” of the consultants and still be in a good mood!
I really admire some good project managers I’ve met.
Key Users
Within SAP projects, it is quite common to have a dedicated team (client-side) for all areas of the project, that is, before starting an SAP project, people are chosen who have full knowledge of all processes in their respective areas. so that, together with the consultants, they can arrive at the best solution (which everyone agrees on).
In addition to holding the knowledge, Key Users will be responsible for testing the entire system and multiplying knowledge among all future users of the system.
It is a position of great responsibility and expectation.
But of course, because they are great professionals, they cannot be 100% dedicated to the project, as they end up having to support day-to-day activities, and that is not easy.
The stress level in this position is also quite high, as it is a position where they have to “protect” the company’s current processes and try their best to keep them in the new system.
It is a very negotiating position, and good contact with the consultants is essential, as it will be both (and together) that will negotiate with the global team for the approval of requirements and requests.
Consultants
We finally arrived at the position I can best describe.
Consultants perform a variety of functions during the course of the project, in addition to being constantly billed by the project manager for deliverables.
It is the consultant’s responsibility to understand the company’s global model (called Template), understand how the local model works (which Key Users will defend), explain the business needs to the global team, and propose solutions that please: the manager, the key user, and the global team.
It’s a position where multitasking is mandatory.
The consultant is the professional who will have to think, execute, test, and validate the entire solution.
It is usually a position with a high level of stress (due to great pressure), but with many possibilities. There are numerous opportunities in the market for good consultants.
Planning: Where it starts
If we stop to think about how stress starts on a project, what would you say?
To be clear, the stress starts with the sale of the project.
Imagine that, many times, the commercial team that is negotiating the project does not have the visibility of the entire scope of the project (it may be due to a lack of technical knowledge, or the client itself may not be able to explain).
In the world of SAP consulting, the project is estimated in working hours, that is, the scope is “understood” by the commercial team, an estimate is made in hours, the consultancy multiplies those hours by the hourly value and that’s it, we have our deadline and ready price.
After the conclusion of the contract, the commercial team will hand over to the technical manager the task of slicing the project, putting it on a schedule, and starting its execution.
And what do you think happens here?
99% of the time, the technical manager himself discovers that the scope does not fit within that deadline. And here it gets ugly.
Renegotiating is out of the question, so the way out is to “parallelize” activities and let stress reign.
This is the zero point of stress within a project.
Overloaded?
It’s quite common (and lately it’s getting more common) for project participants to feel overwhelmed from the first day of the project.
This is extremely negative because all projects have phases, and as time goes by, the project tends to get heavier (in terms of deadlines, deliveries, etc. heavy.
Due to the projects already starting “late”, everyone is extremely overloaded with activities.
Imagine that, in a past experience, in one of the clients I passed, we would have 3 go-lives, and as we didn’t have enough resources, the manager simply parallelized the activities, and it was the same resources that would perform the tasks.
It was crazy.
Personally, I’ve always worked on very stressful projects, and after a lot of suffering, I decided to make some changes (which I’ll talk about later).
Lack of Vision
What ends up happening with projects is that, due to excess stress and work overload, people forget what they initially wanted on that project.
They become so focused on dates and KPIs that they forget that that system will be used by a real company and that the processes need to be working.
In addition to this lack of vision, many people end up getting discouraged during the project, further hindering its progress.
I usually say that the project becomes something like the movie “Chicken Run”, where everyone starts to run desperately to a corner.
Learning how to manage stress
Unfortunately, I have bad news.
There’s no way to avoid stress.
It is and will always be part of the lives of people who work in the project area (and in several other areas as well).
We can do some things to ease the stress (own experience).
Sports
I am passionate about sports. I’ve always been.
One thing that I discovered and that I recommend is, before starting the workday, always practice physical activity. This helps start the day much more focused as well as relaxed.
And after a stressful day at work, there’s nothing better (for me) than going to the park for a run. Stress decreases in an incredible way.
Ressignify
What does stress mean to you?
In a course I took, it was explained that the purpose of stress is to make people grow.
Stress acts as a push for us to evolve in our lives (professional and personal) and, if we start to think that way, things can change radically.
The idea is to view stress and problems as opportunities for growth.
I always try to see what is the learning behind that certain episode that bothered me so much.
100% of the time I find something positive and that bad experience becomes less painful.
Work 8 hours a day
I know that this suggestion will be controversial, because long working hours are very common in the world of projects, however, I noticed over time that working long hours does not mean being productive.
Being productive is actually delivering what is needed and not simply being present in the office or online in Microsoft Teams.
Being productive is being every day at 8:00 am rested and energized to use all your mental energy to have a productive day, solve problems, think about solutions, and cultivate good relationships.
When working too long, it is impossible to rest, and we don’t have time for any other pillar of our life.
When I say pillar, I mean: spiritual, family, love, sports, leisure, etc.
This lack of balance will only make you more stressed, less productive, and less happy.
Conclusion
I hope you enjoyed this post on a topic that bothers us so much in the course of our lives.
Even if you don’t work in the area of SAP projects, I’m sure a lot of what has been said here applies to your life.
I hope you can put into practice the resignification of stress, because, I’m sure, your days will improve reasonably.
A big hug,
Bruno César
