I’m certain I’ve written about it before, probably more than once, but … heavy sigh … IT projects are still getting choked by dysfunctional beliefs.
I’m writing this in May (according to my diary it’s Day 128 of the year) and I’m about to share TEN Dysfunctional Beliefs I’ve already heard this year!
And how to disrupt and reframe them!
TIME TO RETHINK YOUR THINKING?
“Cognitive distortions have to do with patterns or processes of thinking. In contrast, dysfunctional beliefs have to do with the actual content of thinking itself.” – Dysfunctional Beliefs Affecting Stress, MentalHealth.com
We’re all guilty of it!
I just had a coffee with my friend, a software designer, and a handful of times things I said elicited the response “That needs a reframe”.
Reframing problems (so that you’re answering the right question) is part of a designer’s DNA … and that’s the challenge we often face with our thinking.
1 – “HIRING PROJECT MANAGEMENT AS A SERVICE PEOPLE RESOURCES IS EXPENSIVE.”
I’ll start with this one, naturally, it’s close to my heart.
We’d been recommended to a CIO as “the fourth emergency service” (I won’t tell RNLI if you don’t!!!) Resourcing was a problem across the project portfolio, reallocating talent had just shifted the problem elsewhere and a key strategic business IT project was in real danger.
He was worried about the budget impact of “parachuting” in “emergency” talent.
Two things here:
- The cost of not saving this strategically vital project far outweighed any extra spend – the project was simply too important to fail.
- Often Project Management services can be accessed via PMaaS (Project Management as a Service) without a net increase to your overall project portfolio budgets.
REFRAME: “What’s the cost of NOT investing in expert help?” Paying for the “parachute” beats the alternative!!! Anyway, used proactively, with a little planning, PMaaS has been known to save money versus permanent hires or contractors.
2 – “AS LEADER I HAVE TO COPE WITH EVERYTHING. THE BUCK STOPS WITH ME!”
OK, it’s true that as the person driving the project you hold ultimate responsibility for keeping it on course, a project’s success should never rest on just one pair of shoulders.
It’s a bit of a project management throwback. I think it harks back to the macho, alpha, “my way or the highway” type of project managers—like all dinosaurs they’re now extinct and thankfully, things have evolved. Their fossils can still be found though in the shape of this belief!
REFRAME: Delegate to your team. Lean into Project Management as a Service if you need extra hands. Leadership isn’t doing it all—it’s making sure it all gets done.
3 – “THERE’S NO ROOM TO MAKE MISTAKES.”
Post-it notes, microwave ovens, penicillin, inkjet printers, and potato crisps were all invented by mistake.
Most of the key lessons I’ve learned in IT Project Management came from mistakes I’d made.
To err is human! To learn from mistakes is a human right!
REFRAME: Build in room for mistakes, create a culture where your team knows they’re allowed to learn from them. Perfection is overrated anyway!!! Progress is the goal.
4 – “THE PROJECT IS LATE.”
Dave Evans (who led the design of Apple’s first mouse) framed this nicely on Stanford’s Entrepreneurial Thought Leaders podcast. He said, “There’s no such thing as late. You’re just here.”
Incidentally, Stanford’s Life design Studio has a big “You Are Here” sign at the entrance – as a reminder to students!
Labelling your project as “late” is really demotivating and generally unhelpful. Have you ever called your stakeholders to tell them the project is late? Did they appreciate it?
REFRAME: It’s not late … it’s just where it’s at. Once you’ve accepted where you are, you can deal with it.
Realising “where your project’s at” is a superpower! Accepting YOU ARE HERE allows you to do something about it … you could call your PMaaS partner for extra resources or other advice (the power of fresh eyes!!), re-allocate resources, make adjustments to your portfolio timelines … etc!
“Don’t tell stakeholders you’re late,” my PM friend Josh says, “explain how brilliantly your team is going to deal with an unexpected occurrence!”
5 – “I HAVE TO GET ALL OF TODAY’S TASKS DONE TODAY.”
Ah, the tyranny of the to-do list. Of course, we all want to tick everything off—but this belief creates unnecessary stress. Worse, it can lead to rushed decisions or cutting corners just to say something’s done.
REFRAME: Focus on prioritisation, not completion. Ask: “What must happen today? What can wait?” Tomorrow is just today with a different name.
You have a Gantt chart rather than a Gantt Post-It note for a reason!!!
6 – “I OUGHT TO HAVE DONE BETTER.”
That little voice whispering “not good enough” is lying to you. This dysfunctional belief masquerades as accountability, but it’s actually unhelpful perfectionism dressed as humility. Get over yourself!
REFRAME: Instead of self-criticism, ask: “What can I learn from this?” Reflective practice beats beating yourself up.
There’s a lot of clarity in hindsight – Julia Hartz
7 – “I MUST BE IN CONTROL OF ALL SITUATIONS.”
Bless! Similar to “As leader I have to cope with everything. The buck stops with me!” but this dysfunctional belief pertained to the thinking that a PM needs to personally manage every moving part—every risk, every dependency, every stakeholder’s mood swing.
REFRAME: Great leadership isn’t control; it’s influence. Empower your team. Trust them. It’s OK to be the cox rather than the rower!
“If everything needs your input, you’ve built a bottleneck, not a project.” My PM friend Malc.
8 – “THINGS MUST GO WELL.”
I heard this in March. It’s a beautiful sentiment… and completely unrealistic. Projects are living, breathing, unpredictable creatures. There will be bumps. This project is currently over budget and beyond its anticipated delivery into service date – but the extra spend and delay will make it future-proofed and a better end-user prospect.
REFRAME: Aim for resilience, not perfection. Problems will happen; what matters is how quickly and gracefully you respond.
Besides, if things always went well, you wouldn’t be a project manager – you’d be a project spectator.
9 – “IF WE JUST WORK HARDER, WE’LL CATCH UP.”
Uh-oh!! This one’s a classic trap. When a project’s slipping, there’s a temptation to believe sheer effort will fix it. Throwing extra “elbow grease” at a problem, without rethinking approach, can just lead to burnout.
I worked with an IT team on a large CRM implementation that had fallen behind schedule. Leadership’s instinct was to throw in overtime, weekends, and extra hands to “catch up.” But despite the long hours, bugs piled up, quality dropped, and team morale hit rock bottom. Eventually, they paused, brought in a handsome, debonair, Project Management as a Service partner to review the plan, re-sequence deliverables with more realistic timelines and adequately resource the project. Ironically, it wasn’t until they slowed down that they started making real progress and delivered a phased rollout that the business could actually manage.
REFRAME: Sometimes you need to pause and pivot, not just pedal faster. More hours won’t fix a broken process. Step back. Reset. Refocus. Then move forward smarter.
10 – “ONCE WE’VE LAUNCHED, IT’S DONE.”
I hear this one a lot with big-bang, headline rollouts. The belief that launch day is the end of the journey. In reality, it’s just the end of the beginning.
REFRAME: Plan for post-launch life as much as the go-live moment. Support, feedback loops, iteration, continuous improvement—that’s where real project success lives.
In January, an organisation rolled out a new internal IT service. Early user testing flagged some serious usability issues, but the project team decided to defer fixes until post-launch, with a “patch it later” mindset. Unfortunately, adoption tanked at go-live, frustrated users abandoned the system, workaround processes took over, and fixing the issues after launch required not just technical changes but a huge effort to rebuild trust. Delaying the fix cost far more than addressing it upfront and damaged the project’s credibility.
Some Final thoughts:
Dysfunctional beliefs creep in because we’re human. We tell ourselves stories that aren’t always true. But with a little reframing, and a lot of compassion, we can swap old narratives for better ones. Soooooooooo … Give yourself a break!
Every IT project deserves clear-eyed leadership, realism, and flexibility to adapt … Sometimes, the biggest upgrade isn’t in your tech stack … it’s in how you think.
More about Project Management as a Service from Stoneseed
Sources:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_pointing_devices
mentalhealth.com/library/dysfunctional-beliefs-affecting-stress
storypick.com/inventions-made-by-mistake/