Individuals expect stressful portions of their new product development projects. An abundance of complaints may be a precursor to an abundance of stress. Individuals expect to have sufficient resiliency to cope with the stress. Even when exhausted, individuals expect to recover in time to keep their commitments to the next project. Individuals expect to survive.

There is a potential for something more positive than survival. This post explores the potential for growth.

The Negative Aspects of Stress

During new product development, stress is one of the costs of participation. Because of stress, some individual contributors deliver sub-standard work.

According to Chet Richards, “John Boyd thought of stress as an offensive weapon.” Richards references Boyd’s words to define stress. Boyd stated:

“Generate uncertainty, confusion, disorder, panic, chaos … to shatter cohesion, produce paralysis and bring about collapse. “ (Boyd, Patterns of Conflict, 1986 #132)

For challenging projects, some individuals may feel overwhelmed. Because of their perceptions of the effort required for project success, individuals may risk “burning out.”

For problematic projects, phrases such as “death march” may be used to describe the development experience. According to Wikipedia

“Death March: In project management, a death march is any of several types of pathologic projects involving a dysphemistic, dark-humor analogy to real death marches, such as being gruelingly overworked, and (often and most especially) being gruelingly overworked for ill-founded reasons on a project that is obviously at high risk of bad outcome (i.e., project failure, and possibly threat of personal and group reputation damage). “

To understand the impacts of stress, I will highlight two items from current studies in psychology, posttraumatic stress and posttraumatic growth.

Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)

Stress may do more than reduce performance or produce other short-term harmful impacts. Consider the definition of posttraumatic stress disorder, PTSD.

According to Wikipedia:

“Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a severe anxiety disorder that can develop after exposure to any event that results in psychological trauma… Posttraumatic stress disorder is classified as an anxiety disorder, characterized by aversive anxiety-related experiences, behaviors, and physiological responses that develop after exposure to a psychologically traumatic event (sometimes months after). Its features persist for longer than 30 days, which distinguishes it from the briefer acute stress disorder and are disruptive to all aspects of life.”

Posttraumatic Growth (PTG)

Something good can emerge from bad situations. In some instances, growth can result from a stressful experience. Psychologists use the phrase Posttraumatic Growth. The phrase Posttraumatic Growth was coined by Richard Tedeshi, a psychology professor at the University of North Carolina in Charlotte.

Posttraumatic growth is not the same as resilience. Resilience is assessed by one’s ability to return to pre-trauma levels. Posttraumatic growth is characterized by achieving higher levels of functionality than pre-trauma levels.

According to Wikipedia:

“Post-traumatic Growth refers to positive psychological change experienced as a result of the struggle with highly challenging life circumstances. These sets of circumstances represent significant challenges to the adaptive resources of the individual, and pose significant challenges to individuals’ way of understanding the world and their place in it. Posttraumatic growth is not simply a return to baseline from a period of suffering; instead it is an experience of improvement that for some persons is deeply meaningful.”

Tedeschi and Calhoun (1) proposed a Posttraumatic Growth Inventory (PTGI) comprised of five factors:

Relating to others

New possibilities

Personal strength

Spiritual change

Appreciation of life

An online inventory tool is available from the American [...]