Teams Outlast Projects

In my startup days, we often had these dead marches where we had to implement a massive new feature in time before some kind of trade show happened. We worked long hours and even weekends to make it happen so the boss and a project manager could go to Vegas for the trade show.

When they came back on Monday, they told us what the competition was doing, and laid out a brand-new strategy they’d dreamed up between hotel bars and expo booths.

That company no longer exists. Not because the strategies were wrong, or even the timelines. It failed because those plans were made in isolation, disconnected from a team that was already exhausted and out of motivation.

Projects execute strategy. People execute projects. And no project exists in isolation, they rest on everything that came before.

Strategy is not self-executing.

You can make the most perfect strategy and roadmap in the world, but if you don’t have the people to carry it out, then all you have a nice business case. An idea, not a project.

When we define projects, we often reduce people to headcount. “Three developers, one project manager, one ops person. Who’s available?”. But availability isn’t the same as readiness. A burned-out team won’t produce a winning outcome, no matter how strong the plan.

A good manager will look at the project and the team and assign people that might have done something like that before, or someone that can learn from the project. Yet we never look at the strategy or project planning phases if it is actually currently the right time to implement this based on the team’s morale or setup.

There is a famous book in management called “Playing to Win: How Strategy Really Works” by Alan G. Lafley. In the book the steps of coming up with strategy and how to implement it are described.

One of the steps in the process is “What capabilities must we have in place to win?”. The book mainly explores things like “do we have the right people and processes”, but It never seems to go very deep into, What is the status of said people and processes.

A Formula 1 car is built to win, but if the fuel tank is empty, you’re not exactly going to win SPA.

I hate the term “resources” for people.

People always look at me as I’m the biggest hippie alive when I tell them I prefer the term people over the term resources in planning meetings. It treats them as interchangeable units that reset after each project.

Teams provide continuity in your organization. Projects come and go, but the same people will handle them stay behind¹. They carry the learnings, network, and practices from previous projects, but also the energy level and issues. High or low.

Broader organizational context matters, too. A rumour of layoffs, true or not, changes how people approach their work. Some push harder to prove their value. Others disengage and update their CV.

Long before the first kick-off meeting, the tone of a project is already set by the state of the team.

Yes, but how do we work this?

As Alan Lafley reminds us: know your playing field. Strategy isn’t just about spotting opportunities, it’s about knowing when it’s the right moment to pursue them. Timing is as critical as vision. Acting too early can be as costly as acting too late, because execution depends not only on the market but on the state of the people who must do the work.

That doesn’t mean discarding ideas. Every organization should maintain a backlog of opportunities, a kind of “strategic inventory.” But treating that backlog as a to-do list to be executed immediately is dangerous.

The backlog is not a queue; it’s a library. Its value comes from being ready when the organization has the capacity and capability to act, not from sheer volume or speed of throughput.

When the timing is right, build the project carefully. Resist the temptation to fill roles by simply matching open availability to job titles. Instead, consider who has the relevant experience, who is motivated to grow, and who has the current energy to succeed.

Remember: a dysfunctional team produces a dysfunctional project. You can have the clearest strategy, the best tools, and the most generous budget, but if the team is exhausted, misaligned, or disengaged, the project will fail.

Sometimes the best move is to postpone a flagship initiative and focus on smaller efforts until the team is ready. It’s better to arrive later with a strong product than to rush something weak that damages both reputation and momentum.

In the long run, advantage comes not from speed alone, but from consistency, trust, and resilience. A delayed project can still succeed if it ultimately delivers value and strengthens the team. A broken project, delivered too soon, can erode customer confidence, damage reputation, and demoralize employees in ways that are far harder to repair.