Is your IT project team burning out?

by Nicki Carruth | Feb 28, 2023 | Technical Assurance

We know as well as anyone just how demanding a programme or project can be. Along with the typical stress and challenges of busy work life, working on a project brings the added element of time pressure, budget and unexpected changes. Project teams, like any other work team, need to actively manage their workload and make sure that no one is taking on more than they can handle. Even with the best of intentions, however, it’s quite common to experience burnout first-hand or see a colleague go through it at some point in one’s project career.

In this article, we explore the concept of burnout as it relates to busy project teams, both project managers to delivery team members. If you or someone in your team is heading towards burnout, speaking up and/or seeing a doctor right away is strongly recommended.

What is burnout?

According to Health Navigator NZ, burnout is “a state of emotional, mental and physical exhaustion”. Burnout can be brought on by numerous inputs, but oftentimes professional burnout is created by prolonged stress from these sources. In the context of a busy project team, individuals can experience burnout due to factors like huge workload with due dates that are unachievable within a typical work day, continual conflicts or pressures from others in the business or unexpected challenges that arise and take weeks or even months to resolve.

Even the most energetic of professionals are still humans – we’re not designed to ‘red line’ for more than a brief period of time once in a while, before we need to regain a normal equilibrium – that is reasonable workload and general happiness in our jobs. Unfortunately the work ethic in New Zealand’s corporate world is such that many push themselves to the brink and into burnout without even realising it.

When someone goes through burnout, the effects can be very serious. From physical exhaustion to poor mental wellbeing, individuals who’ve hit the wall need time away from work until they’ve regained their energy and health. Some professionals who burnout may end up changing jobs eventually, although employers are becoming more in tune with the realities of work stress overload and many are prioritising their teams’ wellbeing ahead of deadlines which is encouraging to see.

Burning out helps no one, and no job or project is worth the personal toll that it can take. Both organisations and individuals benefit greatly from putting the right steps in place to prevent exhaustion in the workplace.

Relationship Between Programmes and Projects IQANZ

Who can be affected by burn out?

Burnout doesn’t discriminate – everyone from the chief executive, managers, developers to accounts payable can experience the effects of burnout. The causes as outlined by Mayo Clinic are situations that can occur in any job, including extremes of activity, unclear job expectations and dysfunctional workplace dynamics. In the project team, there’s a tremendous amount of pressure on the project manager; they’re looked to for support and guidance from the delivery team and are accountable to a steering committee, senior leadership team and often navigate stakeholder demands that are conflicting. It’s not just the PM that encounters the variety of demands – delivery team members like developers and designers can find themselves having to juggle multiple demands at the same time.

Understanding the difference between working hard and burning out

There’s a healthy level of challenge that any project team will experience, and if there are clear controls around workloads, time management and support then this pressure should sit on the side of motivating – not exhausting. It’s important to recognise that project teams will work hard to meet the milestones set, complete a sprint and deliver a feature update on time. When a productive, cohesive project team is working hard, there should be a general sense of satisfaction as deliverables are completed. This comes from having clarity on the objective, respect for each other’s contributions and realistic expectations from the business on timeframes. It can’t be overstated just how draining hard work towards an unclear objective is. This demands more of our brains to both understand the problem as well as work on a solution. If this problem is ever-changing, the mounting frustration can take its toll on motivation. The same goes for poor interpersonal dynamics – whether that’s inside the project team or between project team members and other business units or stakeholders. And there’s no need for us to explain to anyone in the project or programme space what unrealistic due dates can do to motivation or job satisfaction. Working hard, even in an ideal workplace culture and environment, needs to be tempered with downtime. Burnout can hit highly motivated professionals who simply don’t know when to slow down. But the added pressures mentioned above can certainly expedite exhaustion and the effects of what’s often referred to as burnout.

Is the project set up to succeed or destined to fail?

How can organisations keep project teams from burning out? It’s a complex puzzle but one that our team routinely helps with through our quality assurance work. A project team can have the most experienced PM and skilled personnel delivering the work and still experience issues that lead to burnout and other impacts. A project doesn’t succeed in a vacuum – it needs various mechanisms in place. These can include:

Contribution to a strategic purpose driven by the leadership team.
A robust governance framework and support structure.
Excellent communication of the project or programme’s purpose and progress.
A budget that’s sufficient, including contingency.
Actively managed risk mitigation.
A steering committee that advocates for the project across the organisation.
A well-defined scope.
Clear roles and responsibilities of stakeholders and sign-offs.
Milestones that represent the logical progress of delivery.
A timeline that allows for the completion of tasks within typical working hours.
Clear escalation points to resolve conflicts between the delivery team and stakeholders.
Access to business units and other personnel in the business that hold important knowledge to allow the project to progress.

When a project hasn’t been given the budget, time and resources it needs, the delivery team and project manager are left having to achieve the impossible. The stress this brings upon delivery teams can be intense, and it’s a recipe for stress and sometimes burnout.

Expectations placed on the delivery team – are they realistic?

IT projects require highly specialised skill sets and involve a multitude of small details and key strategic decisions. New Zealand’s IT industry is greatly under-resourced, meaning tech professionals do have choices as to where and how they work. The business needs to allow project teams the right space to solve complex challenges properly (whilst keeping to a reasonable cadence or schedule). External pressures to expedite functionality rarely result in the same quality outcome, and worse, may cause burnout in the team or trigger people to leave for a better project. It’s important to keep momentum in any IT project, but the Project Manager and, by extension, the steering committee need to ensure that project milestones are commensurate with the nature of delivery and work involved. It’s not only a risk to the wellbeing of project team members, but of the organisation itself – the cost of a rushed system feature or key deliverable could hurt operations or present a security risk.

Resetting expectations of the business for project completion timeframes

Whilst the organisation has a duty to set realistic timeframes for project teams to complete work and ensure burnout isn’t experienced, it’s also on project managers to push back on the business when expectations are simply out of step with what’s possible. It is a difficult conversation to explain why milestones haven’t been achieved on time and why the budget is blown, as opposed to a discussion about whether the forecasted dates and costs are aligned with what’s possible. Setting expectations up front is sometimes hard for the typical New Zealand workplace; we often take a ‘she’ll be right’ attitude and attempt to achieve what’s probably unrealistic with the parameters we’re given. Experienced project managers will push through this and sound the alarm as soon as they spot problems. If timelines are not going to allow for quality deliverables that meet acceptance criteria and protect a project team’s workload from going outside of standard working hours, then expectations need to be reset. Organisations should welcome these conversations – and those with the right mindset will collaborate with PMs and steering committees to identify the best solution, whether it’s more budget, time or resources.

Where are the stressors coming from? Resolving the root causes

Understanding where issues stem from is an absolute priority to avoid project team burnout. Some uncomfortable truths may need to be faced – and that includes difficult personalities. Honesty and trust are essential to a well performing IT project team – calling out stressors should be actively encouraged. Some of the most damaging sources of stress can actually be addressed early before they’re serious problems – such as a stakeholder who continually queries the approach (a clear scope and clarity on roles and responsibilities of stakeholders can help). There could be a divergence in opinion within the delivery team itself, in which case the project manager will need to facilitate open discussion and ensure everyone has a clear understanding of the project deliverables. Without understanding where the causes of staff burnout are coming from, there’s a risk of it happening to more of the team, repeatedly.

Burnout should never be acceptable in an organisation

There’s nothing more important than the wellbeing of people in a business. Without happy, motivated staff, the business can suffer from poor culture, attrition issues, and become stagnant as staff move on for better working environments. In an IT project, the skills of a project team are in short supply, including project managers. This expertise needs to be protected by avoiding overworking and unnecessary sources of stress. Beyond the business impact of people burning out is of course the human reason – none of us come to work to be driven to the point of exhaustion, and our best work is done when we’re valued, supported and have reasonable expectations placed on us. If you’re worried about your project team’s stress levels and the potential for burnout, don’t delay – encourage open discussion and be prepared to push back on the business’ expectations. And if you’re in a position of senior leadership, take a proactive approach to changing how projects are scoped and planned – there’s a good chance the outcomes will be better, and you’ll attract long term talent who love coming to work.

Need guidance on your IT project?

IQANZ provides specialist assurance services for technology projects across the private and public sectors. We apply proven assurance methodologies along with a high level of technical expertise to help guide projects and programmes to success. If you’re interested in getting independent, expert help on your technology project, get in touch with our team.