What is the project mindset lifecycle? It is the evolution of the team’s mindset towards the project’s success.

This is a typical example:

The project first starts out where everyone is excited! This project is going to be much better than the last. Leave all that baggage and that bad boss behind, all the lessons learned are going to make this project go much smoother.

Inevitably the project encounters it’s first major challenge. How will the project team react to the challenge? Will the team pull together to overcome the challenge? Or will the letters and lawyers come out and everyone starts fighting?

Without a strong leader, the mindset of the team can drift either way. It takes a strong leader to guide the mindset in the right direction.

If everyone pulls together and manages towards success, the mindset stays positive. And with positive mindset, there are positive actions that lead to success.

But if the project mindset is allowed to deteriorate towards letters and lawyers, a negative mindset takes over the team. It then takes a really strong leader to pull the project mindset back into focus, and
I have rarely seen leaders that are strong enough to do this.

This is how the project mindset lifecycle evolves. And if not managed correctly or at all, the mindset drifts out of control. The out of control project mindset then determines the success of the project.

The collective mindset of the project team is similar to a small community, especially when working in a camp environment. The team forms a culture specific to the project. It evolves as described above.

And when challenges are encountered, the team mindset requires close attention to ensure it is guided in the right direction.

A camp environment is particularly interesting when it comes to mindset. It is like a small social experiment to see how people react in such an environment. Many PHD papers could be written to study the project camp environment. And probably many social experiments too. Toss in an agitating personality and see how everyone reacts.

But the point is, the mindset of the project team quickly overtakes any individual mindset until everyone has similar thoughts on the success of the project. Anyone new to the project quickly assumes the overall thoughts of the team. If someone joins a project in duress and everyone is pessimistic, the new
person quickly assumes these same thoughts and has little chance to add to the success of the project.

Your thoughts control your actions. Your actions define your success! Be the leader that the project needs.