3 Avoidance

Avoidance is the act or practice of withdrawing from something or someone. In project management, avoidance implies a deliberate act of moving away from something or someone, usually because it is unpleasant or problematic.

The Sin

One of my professors used to put it this way: “Eat your crow when it’s young and tender, rather than when it’s old and tough.” In my experience, avoidance now leads to “old and tough” later.

Trying to avoid (that is, “ignore”) potential problems on a project or hope they’ll go away is counterproductive. You can’t avoid scraped knees as a kid, and you can’t avoid problems in the course of a project. What you can—and should—do is anticipate, mitigate, and manage problems as part of a disciplined risk management process.

Avoidance is the opposite of disciplined risk management, and since risk management is an essential element of effective project management, avoidance undermines the entire process. Worse yet, it makes way for small problems to grow into large ones.

A Case of Avoidance

It’s like working with horses. Yes, horses kick, but the way not to get hurt isn’t to avoid horses entirely. That might be effective, but it’s not very practical if you enjoy being around them. People who are afraid tend to keep a good distance between themselves and the back end of a horse—they avoid getting too close, which is probably the worst thing they can do. A kick from a horse hurts the most at the “end” of its kick, when its leg is farthest from its body and moving fast.

On the other hand, if you stay close to a horse when you’re moving behind it—better yet, if your hands are on its backside—the horse will know that you’re there. Your chances of surprising the horse and getting kicked are reduced significantly.

Even if you do get kicked, you’re so close in that the horse can’t get much of a kick up, and not with much velocity. You could catch the horse’s “early kick” hoof in one hand if you had to, and even if you couldn’t, a short, close-in kick doesn’t hurt nearly as much.

Project stakeholders and their issues are like this too, so keeping your distance from them isn’t the smart thing to do. On the contrary, avoiding them entirely or pretending they don’t exist is the worst thing you can do. If you stay close—close to the stakeholders and close to the issues—you have a chance to anticipate, mitigate, and manage them.

Danger Signs

A tendency to avoid shows itself early, particularly when a project manager doesn’t set or support an environment where opposing views and ideas are aired openly. Open agendas can be dealt with, and when a view is out of sync with the majority of the stakeholder community, the smart project manager will bring in the sponsor to help reach a resolution.

A project manager who creates an environment where stakeholders feel like they’re on the outside, and therefore don’t feel welcome to share what they’re thinking, is asking for trouble. Early issues will turn up as problems later on. The later they’re dealt with, the more difficult and expensive they are to resolve.

Avoidance? Danger. Best response? Engage.

When you find yourself surprised by the question “Didn’t you know that person X was offline on this?” you know you’re too late. You’ve either missed signals or, worse yet, avoided when you should have engaged.

Tips for Overcoming Avoidance

Pull in all the stakeholders. Don’t allow anyone to avoid the issues. As soon as you notice someone missing meetings or failing to participate, go after that person and actively engage him. Use your sponsor for support if necessary.

Don’t wait. Act quickly to find out why someone has a question or issue and address it openly.

Embrace the opposition. Don’t avoid an idea or action just because it differs from your own. The most creative solutions often arise from entertaining opposing viewpoints.