A profession built on endurance: inspiring, training, and empowering a project team

Our projects rarely fail for technical reasons. They slow down when someone steps away without saying a word, derail when no one dares to share bad news, and fizzle out when the team no longer believes it's worth the effort. Leading a project team is an endurance sport.

A long-distance race condenses into roughly thirty hours everything a project spreads across months: the commitment made without knowing it all, the excitement at the starting line, the mid-race slump, the surprisingly quiet finish, and the day after. Drawing from my ultra-trail experience, I propose navigating this journey in three phases—before the start, during the race, and at the finish. At each stage, we will identify warning signs to monitor and concrete actions to inspire, train, and support a team: recognizing turbulence before it catches you off guard, protecting a sustainable pace, welcoming bad news, putting one foot in front of the other when everything feels stuck, and bringing things to a proper close.

This session draws on Tuckman's stages of team development, PMBok 8 team charters, sustainable pacing, and psychological safety. A narrative filled with practical takeaways.

Speaker

Xavier Fognini

Xavier Fognini is a Project Manager at Concordia University's IT Project Management Office. He brings around twenty years of experience in project management and information technology across software development, the public sector, and higher education, including directing a corporate project management office. An ultra-trail runner since 2016, his finishes include the Diagonale des Fous in 2024, the TDS (UTMB) in 2023, and several races across Quebec.

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