How to balance creativity and delivery when your team loves a side project
Some teams are so packed with energy, innovation and ideas that the challenge isn’t getting them to be more proactive – it’s getting them to focus. When every new idea brings excitement and every potential project gets jumped on, it can quickly become difficult to keep the core, day-to-day work on track.
That’s not to say these side projects don’t have value – they can lead to efficiencies and impact that genuinely move the needle. But too many all at once, without finishing the job at hand, and the quality starts to drop. So how do you strike the right balance?
Balance might be closer than you think
If you lead a team like this, you’ll be pleased to know that often, the foundations are already there. You just maybe need a little more structure around how much time is spent on project work versus the day job. You could ask your team to work on their main tasks Monday to Thursday and use Friday as project time. Google famously operate a structure which does this – giving people time to pursue their passion projects at particular moments in the working week. Or you could suggest they intersperse ‘fun work’ with their main work on a daily basis. It may be that different team members work best with different structures.
Try the traffic light system
As a leader, you could also explore having a traffic light system in the office – where most of the time, it’s on amber: you can do your project work when it works for you. When the main job is completed and there’s some downtime, which could be used for the fun project work, it could be designated a ‘green’ day. And when the main work has a tight deadline and needs full focus, it could be a ‘red’ day, meaning all project work is paused.
Finding a successful approach
In all these scenarios, what you need to do is get the team onside and ask them to work with you. You need to find an approach that allows them to keep their project work and their motivation, whilst making sure that the main work is being delivered to a standard and a timeframe. Positioning it as a way to avoid external scrutiny (e.g. ‘We don’t want other departments questioning how we spend our time’) can help rally the team behind the change, without making it look like it’s on you.
3 resources to help with time management
How to do time management well: the go-to guide from efficiency maestros, Slack Alternative view: why we need to stress about time less
The hidden cost of time management: why managers need to be careful what we preach
How to spend your time more wisely: simple ways to make better use of your time
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