Today I had to give one of my student project leaders some bad news about a project we’re working on. At mid-term, it looks as if only a fairly major miracle will save that project from failure. It can still be a learning experience, and we can salvage the project when the class ends, but the project isn’t going to work as it is.
The student went through the five stages of grief in rapid succession. First denial in the belief that we could somehow rescue the project. Then anger at the classmates (anger that I will say in some cases wasn’t misplaced– the problems are in large part due to how much other students put into the project to this point). Next came bargaining, attempting to figure out trade-offs. Then came depression over the whole thing.
I guess the student only hit four of the five steps. I’m not sure acceptance kicked in yet. It will. This is a talented student who understands, a student who said those words I both appreciate and hate to hear “I hate that you’re right, but I know you’re right.” I do like to be right, but I hate being right when I wanted to be wrong.
But what I shared, talking about this, is what I’ve been trying my whole life to take to heart myself. Sometimes a project fails. It doesn’t have to be your fault (it doesn’t have to be anyone’s fault, but it usually is in the end). In fact if you work hard, it won’t often be your fault that a project crashes and burns, or fizzles out, or rolls across the finish with the tank on E.
Some of us aren’t wired to take it that way. I know I’m not. I don’t like seeing a project fall apart. I get really upset, and of course I blame myself because I don’t want to blame others.
But that student needs to hear this, so I’m telling my student, and on some level I know I’m talking to myself, too.
There are five reasons this project failed:
- One of the entities on campus that was going to help with the project decided not to, taking with them person power and expertise. This sucked, but it wouldn’t kill the project by itself.
- At the same time, the class working on the project has several students who don’t have the requisite skills. If that’s on anyone, it’s on me, but I work in a program with limited prerequisite chains, so that’s just a price we pay. This alone wouldn’t have killed the project.
- And some of those students, as well as some of the ones with the right skill set, have been lazy and not communicated correctly. This… is a killer.
- Some of the people working hard haven’t checked their vision with others (there’s a lack of version control and unity). This is just infuriating because it’s a foolish problem to have.
- People who said they could make it for specific meetings and work sessions are begging off at an alarming clip. This literally put a nail in the project’s coffin. It’s a project that can’t lose weeks of work.
Add it all up, and it doesn’t matter what a project manager does: that project is doomed. The project manager did amazing work. The team let the leader down. It happens more often than we realize. It’s tragic. But I wish the project leader would hear me when I tell them that it’s not on their back. They did great. No one can save the Titanic. Not even the king of the world.
This is a learning moment for everyone involved. It will be okay in the end, and those who want to put in the hard work will come out better on the other side. But those who don’t want to put in the work… they might have to suffer a poor grade and more than one stern talking to.
I mentioned some of my teaching philosophy here and here this past few weeks.
This is the type of teacher that I am:
- I give my students everything they need. Seriously, I do. If I even think I haven’t, I ask them what else they need.
- If a student comes to me, I will do everything in my power to help, even if that means staying up late, staying on campus for an extra couple of hours while I know my wife is waiting on me at home, ignoring my research commitments to put in more teaching time, etc.
- I’ll bail a student out when something is going wrong, as long as we can make it a learning exercise.
- And I don’t want to be arrogant about it, but I’m an expert at a number of things. I speak colloquially and don’t theory-bomb people, but I know my stuff.
Here’s what I won’t do:
- I won’t hold your hand and force you to do the work
- I won’t forgive you if you do something that undermines the efforts of your classmates
- I won’t beg you to do your work
- I won’t beg you to take responsibility
I commented the other day that students in one of my classes weren’t doing enough work. My TA, exasperated, said “stop offering this class as a hybrid!” And that’s AN answer, I suppose. I could make the students meet with me twice a week so I can stare at them while they work. But half of the work for that class is self-started, it’s work that requires that the students engage it. And the students who aren’t engaging it in the hybrid times between classes are the same students that won’t pay attention in the classroom.
I want them to learn. I really do. But I also don’t think we do them any favors if we give them everything they need, explain to them how to do the work, beg them to ask questions, then, if nothing happens, literally drag them through the work.
I have heard tons of those “well, when I was in school, I had to” stories. The ones about Janice Lauer at Purdue were a thing of legend in my graduate program. I’m sure Dr. Lauer was a lovely person (never met her– liked her work, which I read almost all of), but to hear tales of how she ran grad students across the hot coals uphill both ways to a seminar is to imagine a demigorgon of education.
I don’t personally feel that I need to subject my students to any sort of undue stress or massive workload just because someone did it to me (and I think people who used that logic on my generation– and we all know a teacher who has said that– need to reconsider their career choices and their level of angst), but I do think I need to impression upon them what graduate school and life taught me about work: you have to do it. Nike got it right. Just do it. You can’t leave college and think that for the rest of your life someone will follow you around reminding you that you have work to do, helping you with every single step of every project.
You have to learn to be able to use what you’re given and to create. You have to be productive.
The class I was talking to that project leader about is going to have to face their crisis moment this week. They can rise to the occasion or they can fall down.
It’s their decision. If they fail, it isn’t my fault. I’m going to do all I can to make sure that doesn’t happen, but if they choose to keep going forward the way they’ve worked so far, a small but substantial part of that class will fail. Others will get some sort of super-crazy-mega-A for the amount of extra work they’ve done.
I’ve given them everything they need to succeed, and I’ve offered to do even more. But I need to see them making an effort. If they won’t… that’s not my fault. That’s not their project manager’s fault.
It’s time to make accountability great again.