This title may sound positive but it isn’t always. The bandwagon effect is well established. When a team is winning, others want to be part of that success. But those others that come in bring with them their own issues, dilemmas, and drama. In the world of sports, this isn’t so bad because those bandwagon fans cannot do anything to really impact the on-field result. But in the world of business, they can lead to disastrous outcomes.
Successful projects are not terribly common. There are plenty of projects that achieve their desired outcome but they simply accomplished the expected. They may have been simple, ordinary, everyday type activities that just got on with it. Truly successful projects develop a reputation.
Much like people, some projects develop a reputation. They may be known for their timeliness or their scale. It could be the importance put on it by leadership or the breadth of participants from various groups. It may simply be because word of mouth has gotten out and people are talking about it during a slow period. Any number of reasons could transpire to make the project well known, but once it happens you know it without a doubt.
The bandwagon effect in business typically means one of a few things:
- People (not involved in the project) start using your project as the reason they haven’t done something on their list: I would have accomplished this but I’ve heard that Project Alpha is going to have an impact so I’m waiting for that to resolve first.
- People (not involved in the project) become nervous about the impact you are going to have: Have you heard that Project Alpha has the possibility of increasing revenues while cutting headcount by 15%?
- People (not involved in the project) begin acting as if they know what is happening and the outcome to influence others (not involved in the project): I was on a meeting for Project Alpha last week and it is definitely going to require changes to the cost allocations to my group immediately, we should start now to get ahead.
- People (involved in the project) start using it as a way of showing their own importance: Yes, I’m a project manager on Project Alpha but I really shouldn’t talk about it…
Almost unilaterally these effects have a negative impact on the business regardless of what the hypothetical Project Alpha is. It’s important for these behaviors to be spotted and managed as early as possible or the negative impacts could outweigh anything positive that comes about.