Adjourning the Team

                                      By Lisa Martin

There are times when I cannot wait for phase five of a project to occur – adjourning, the end, and there are times when I hate to see a project come to a close.  There was the class project with the lack of leadership and varying degrees of commitment from the members that I wanted to end as soon as it began; and when it finally was over adjournment was like high school graduation with the phony good wishes scribbled in a yearbook.  We all wished each other luck and success in our studies, and did not speak of the hurt feelings, control issues, or failure to complete tasks displayed during the project. We had received a decent grade and that was all that mattered.

Projects at work tend to adjourn a little differently, as the end of the project is not really the end. Usually someone is assigned to follow up and provide oversight on the implementation of changes and evaluate whether or not the solution derived from the group project works as well in practice as it seemed it would in theory. If it was a major project, the type that saved jobs or cut costs, adjourning may include a champagne toast and a nice dinner on the company. Company- wide projects sometimes have that graduation-like component as we bid farewell to colleagues from out of town, offering well wishes and congratulations on a job well done.

My favorite adjournments result from my preferred type of team endeavor, event planning. In this instance, the adjourning occurs simultaneously with the culmination of our efforts. At the same time we are enjoying the idea of the project being completed, we are discovering how well we did. The greater the success of our project; the more fun we have during the adjourning stage. I have had events that were great achievements, and the team members let their hair down and enjoyed themselves alongside the people for whom they had planned the celebration. In a couple of instances, the leadership provided the team with thank you gifts for a job well done; this is my favorite type of adjourning. I have also had events that did not turn out so well, and the team spent the evening going over the things that went wrong, why they went wrong, and how they could be corrected in the future. Needless to say, this is among my least favorite ways of adjourning.