The 2023 Guide to Project Management in the Blockchain Space – Cryptopolitan

Who will be the leader? You have to make tough decisions that others don’t have to make, and you never make the news until you drive a bunch of people crazy. If you’re active long enough, you get the chance to offend the wrong people, and if you’re unlucky enough, you don’t get the chance to correct your mistakes – then that becomes your legacy.

Who will be the leader? You can never make the right decision. You can only choose how many people you insult at once. Micheal J. Sandel, professor of political philosophy at Harvard University, describes the dilemma of making difficult decisions that best affect other people.

Obviously, I don’t have a philosophy degree or a best-selling course at an Ivy-league university, and this is not an article about a philosophy course from Harvard University. This article will explore the difficult choices that project founders face in the blockchain sector and how they deal with the reaction of community members.

The blockchain industry is moving at a fast pace

The blockchain sector is hectic, and dozing off means losing out in this space. You really can’t give up when you get ahead here. How can you when you have a 200,000 strong community cheering you on? Although, as loud as the cheers get, the boos are even louder. And they will come.

You can’t always do right by your community, and it won’t always be your fault when things go wrong. Sometimes the unpopular decisions can even pile on and you will start to lose your fellowship. Then you try to go out of your way to do right by your people, which leads to more rookie mistakes. Perhaps the more accurate statement should have been that the blockchain sector is impatient.

True to its nature, blockchain removes middlemen. It also eliminates the buffer between project management and their communities. Unlike in traditional businesses where board members may never interact with their shareholders, crypto startup founders often interact directly with community members in Telegram, Discord, Twitter and online forums, where the impatience is palpable.

These chats are often flooded with rhetorical questions like “wen launch?” “wen moon?” and other out-of-context suggestions and questions from random community members. At the risk of stating the obvious, most of the community members have zero knowledge of running a project. Some of them haven’t even looked through your roadmap. Most of them are in it for short term profit.

Have you ever heard of “aping in?” Everyone jumps on a project based on leverage and expects prices to go up from there. They get impatient and drop these random, intermittent messages on chats when they’re not moving in the direction they want. Next on the agenda is spreading fear, uncertainty and doubt.

Someone has to keep a cool head, and that’s you – the project manager.

Obviously, the project is your brain child, and the last thing you want to see it do is fail. So you will do everything to be in the good books of the project’s backers. But no matter how thirsty you get, you should always know better than to drink water from the sea.

Set a clear road map

A project’s roadmap is not a proposal; it is how successful projects manage their progress and maintain accountability to their communities. People are also attracted to clarity. As long as things are going according to schedule, you can safely ignore any dissenting voice or send them to the map if they’ve lost their bearings.

Naturally, the landscape is changing very quickly in this industry. So your roadmap can also evolve accordingly, but it should always lead to the final goal you had for your project. It will also help you make good choices even if it is not popular in society or prices in the short term.

For example, Ethereum’s scalability problem is a much-discussed problem throughout the blockchain. However, it is still the most popular protocol through the blockchain. It has also served as the framework for future innovations, including the faster and less decentralized Binance Smart Chain, among many others. It is clear that Ethereum’s founders already know about its limitations, but as long as they delivered on their original vision, they had full confidence in the quality and viability of their product. In their own time they will launch Ethereum 2.0 and we expect it to be a hit.

That’s the way to do it.

Manage expectations

Sometimes you develop a product that’s so good it flies out of the blocks. In a space like ours, where news travels fast and FOMO is intense, no one wants to miss the moon flight.

So, what do you do when the hype grows, and you outgrow your wildest imagination? You manage the expectations. As always, always refer people to the road map to keep their feet on the ground. And as a CEO, founder or whatever position you hold, can’t you join the “wen moon?” audience.

Every decision you make should come from a level head and a clear mind.

Delegate correctly

Maintaining a functional structure throughout the enterprise is essential for your project. Successful projects usually have local and international communities run by social media experts to maintain spirit and morale. They also send updates down the chain to prevent misinformation and manage community reactions.

This structural maintenance takes you out of the firing line. You know what to do now, except try to build a reputation as the eccentric founder. Just a subtle reminder – it gets old pretty quickly. At the same time, you cannot be an alienated CEO with little or no contact with your community.

It may seem obvious, but project managers need to find the balance that works for the specific needs of their project during specific periods.

It is never a bed of roses

Before you start building a project, you should have experience working with a startup, whether it’s in the blockchain space or outside. Experience helps you build a thick skin against adversity and helps you acquire dynamism. Starting from scratch is difficult anywhere, and it is the same in the blockchain space.

It helps when you have the right team around you, but it’s never a bed of roses. Don’t put the cart before the horse because you will be run over, stamped on and hung out to dry.

Who will be the leader? You can never win until you deliver the Holy Grail. That’s when you get your victory lap. Everything else before and after is a chastening experience that you cannot let get to you. Keep your head down and get to BUILDING!