![]() It is very easy to never get bad news, especially if you create an environment that publicly shame s or even attack s the first person who brings up these points. Create a trusted environment that encourages the team to voice their worries The second path is to identify and manage the impact of over-optimism using several specific tools. Without optimism, and the desire to stretch, we remain in the comfort zone and ultimately lose the very thing we are supposed to do : attempt things that have never been done before. But, it also pours the baby out with the bath water. Clearly, this solves the aforementioned challenges of the rude awakening of a project that was over promised and underfunded. The simplest but least successful way to tackle it is to take the optimists entirely out of the equation. ![]() I have seen leaders address this quandary in multiple ways. It is therefore critical to address this issue and do so in ways that make success more likely. Unmanaged excessive optimism can be harmful to the team in the long run and a reason for mistrust by the broader community. I have been in presentation s where I wish I had caught that the assessments were simply unrealistic – assessments that can haunt an otherwise amazing engineering team for decades as they can’t match the reality to the original hope. I f you look at similar initial presentations from the point of view of wisdom gained during the 5-6 years of the development of this mission, this pitch – if not challenged by facts and deep independent analysis – becomes a jump off point that leads to deep regrets and agony for years to come. If they don’t get through this buy-in phase, there is no mission! Generally, and without any bad intent, teams will tend to over-stress the benefit and under-emphasize the challenges that go into this new design. They talk about the amazing possibilities and impacts, and they talk about their elegant technical solutions. Imagine yourself in a room listening to a team that is making a presentation about a new project – a project that truly makes your heart sing. However, if someone asks me about the biggest challenge I see in developing missions to not only be technically successful, but also to be within anticipated cost and schedule, the answer may surprise many: excessive and blinding optimism. T here is no question in my mind about the crucial role that optimism plays in what we do. This is the power of optimism – bringing to life something that is much harder than it looks, and to have the resilience to continue despite the challenges.
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