6 Lessons every project manager can learn from Star Wars
Star Wars is more than a fantastically entertaining franchise. It’s peppered with moments of insights beyond Yoda’s “Do or do not, there is not try”. Below are just a few, out of many, project managers can apply to their daily duties!
1.) Manage Knowledge
In The Force Awakens — everybody is on the hunt to find Luke Skywalker. R2D2 has the coordinates from Luke himself, and BB-8 has the rest of the map. In typical Star Wars fashion, the two droids are separated and only partial bits of information are delivered at a time and it’s not until the end that everything comes together.
Not everybody needs to know everything. What is communicated to your designer will not be the same as what you say to your developer; which is okay. Different conversations need to be had to get the results intended. If everyone knows everything at once, it can be overwhelming; its best to serve information in chewable, digestible chunks to avoid stress.
2.) Let the team know when deadlines are insane
The Resistance was facing an impossible deadline. After seeing the devastation StarKiller Base reaped on The Republic, they knew what their fate would be if they failed. The reality of the situation was that failure was entirely possible. The team had 15 minutes to stop this super weapon!
And they did!
The team had been communicated the entire scope of the project, came together, and succeeded! Despite all odds!
As a project manager, I like to have buffer dates. The due date I communicate internally, is not the same date I’ll communicate to the client. However — sometimes this soft deadline is not a luxury the team can afford, and they need to know the full weight of the project in order to pull it off.
Trust me — when communication is had, and trust is put in the hands of the team, you too can achieve perceivably unrealistic deadlines.
3.) Give credit where it’s due.
This boggled me in theatres. Finn didn’t do anything — he just happened to wake up from the crash and wander into Jakku. One could say it was serendipitous. Poe though, didn’t see it that way. All the credit for success, and getting BB-8 and the coordinates back to the team was given to Finn! Which, when thinking about it, is true. Finn knew all the answers that Rey didn’t, and without him, BB-8 could never have made it back to D’Qar.
The lesson here is — credit where it’s due. Sometimes it might not be obvious, that’s where we have the responsibility to look at the team, look at what was achieved, and how that solution came to be. The answers may not be obvious, but as managers its our duty to find the answer and give the credit to the correct person! Like Poe did!
4.) Accept help
Running from the First Order is no easy feat — especially when it’s on sand. Finn knew this, Rey…. caught on. The reason Finn and Rey were such a dynamic duo, was because they were both willing to accept help from one another.
As project managers — it can be easy to try and solve solutions on your own. After all, you may say “It’s my job!”. And it is; but first and foremost your job is to get the project completed — and your solutions may not be the best to meet that goal. If your engineer or designer has a recommendation: Listen to them.
5.) Have team events
This doesn’t meant you have to hang out with your team all the time — but a few events outside of work here and there will do wonders for morale. When people know they’re working with their friends, and in a place that honours team members as people, rather than just “Code Monkeys” or “Designer Funnels”; the motivation to achieve will increase exponentially.
Networking is also important — like the Rebels with the ewoks after they worked together to liberate Endor from the Empire! Many relationships came from that experience of culture sharing and celebrating!
6.) Know when to quit
When Yoda confronts Palpatine, he’s met with the practiced Sith-finesse of Sidious. Not up to the task, Yoda realizes the unfortunate reality of his failure and calls it quits on his attempt to arrest / end the Sith Emperor. As project managers, we don’t have to exile ourselves when a project starts to go south — but start to recognize the warning signs from our teams and our own experience and know when to modify a project for it to succeed. Perhaps even end it. The problem solving is up to you — but the warning is that quitting is not a bad thing. Risks should always be communicated at the beginning of every project, and the team and PM should operate with those risks in mind. Sometimes, red flags never change colour and there needs to be a step back to have a discussion with your production overseer, business development team, and client. Sometimes the fit isn’t felt on both sides.
Just think: If Yoda hadn’t stopped fighting Palpatine, he very well could have lost, died, and not been around to train the next era of Jedi (Luke Skywalker) and the galaxy’s struggle for good versus evil would have ended with Episode III!
Alternatively, I think we all know what happens when we force a project to take a leap and don’t have the higher ground…
Anakin saw all the warning signs, even his Stakeholder (Obi-Wan) suggested not to make the leap — in the best interest of the Jedi Knight, Skywalker — and his own arrogance caused the warning to fall on deaf ears. We need not be like Anakin, but like Yoda, and know when to call the plug on projects. Especially when the warning signs are obvious.
