The Best Projects Are Fun
Think about the average/median project of your career... Might have been a slog, working late to get something done to just creep across the finish line on time, within budget, or slightly around the desired scope. Its usually not a glamorous finish, but satisfying to get something over with. Maybe it's alot like that 4th of July 5k you didn't train enough for? Not pretty, a bit too sweaty, but you're done and you can enjoy some beers. Sometimes these average projects are painful because you know you "failed" in some way, not hitting some metric, or not hitting something clear out of the park in some way. It sucks to be measured sometimes.
Now if we focus on the best projects, maybe it's something that you were specfically proud of, or enjoyed doing. Those two usually go hand in hand. It doesn't have to be a project at work, it could be something at home, maybe you built a chair or organized the closet in a meaningful way, cooked a fantastic meal (one time I made the best chopped cheese ever, impromptu just because I had the ingredients laying around), but ultimately in my life the best ones are with good teams around me. It could be you were working with people you really liked being around as people, not necessarily because of their professional acumen (though maybe that have that too). When this happens there's a high degree of candor and transparency around opinions and feelings that make working together, and the result of this is something managers are confused by because its a scientific word that you ultimately cannot measure: chemistry. It's a weird force that lifts all ships around it when people enjoy being together. Maybe there wasn't a high focus on metrics (I sure as hell wasn't thinking about my cholesterol numbers when I made that chopped cheese hehe), or maybe you didn't even feel that strongly that the chosen metrics would be appropriate to defining success, but overall it didn't matter because you felt like you had a great time.
Fun as a Non-functional Requirement (NFR)
What I'm trying to get around to is that as consultant, sometimes the only metric that matters is "is my client happy?". The foundation for their happiness has myriad components, but usually the top category is "do they enjoy interacting with me?", which can be composed of a number of components like: are they learning, growing, or otherwise leaning in to the process. Obviously the other things like growing in esteem to their boss and other aspects of career success are good, but ultimately its more about "is the process of the project fun?". That's the important part of all of this: is the process rewarding on its own?
Even NFR's should be measurable (especially technical ones) most of the time (but "happiness" isn't easily quantifiable. I don't think anyone has ever gotten reliable input from a Net Promoter Score survey done inside of one's own team or company! How cringe!), so for this I say, optimize for it in your projects, ask "Does this feel rewarding to do it this way?". End meetings by highlighting the most fun part of it, so there is a passive hook for people to think about the enjoyable parts, and reinforce or continue similar things in some way.
Obviously don't do these things if the project is even remotely in the family of a "struggle bus" or other type of "let's just get this damn thing over with project". There's no amount of pizza that can make those fun, and it's important to be professional by not insulting your team with mandatory fun when spirits are down.
A Basketball Metaphor, and How This Applies to You
There will be no shortage of sports metaphors here from a company named about running. We are trending towards basketball references since the playoffs have been in full swing the past month or so, with not much else going on in the way of sports. Promise there will be running metaphors at some point.
Bosses, managers, whatever you want to call them, might try to optimize a team, and therefore its projects and performance by composing the team in a certain way. You see this all the time in the sporting world where players with high numbers/stats get more money, and there is this naive assumption by team owners that you can craft the best team by spending the most money. This is of course a foolish approach, as the USA Olympic Basketball team (though undoubtedly the best in the world, ever) has a very hard time beating Spain, Serbia, Lithuania, Argentina, Australia, or in the past Yugoslavia. These other teams aren't quite making the big bucks, they might have 1 or 2 NBA players tops, and the rest play internationally for a less fashionable salary the rest of the year.
What these teams do compensate for raw individual prowess with is a much higher degree of CHEMISTRY. They have a ton of fun on the court, they play passionately, lift each other up, and work together in innovative ways.
They aren't necessarily on the court to chase glory, but are much more likely to be there in a spirit of camraderie to enjoy the journey.
Tony
I'll end with an important quote by Anthony Bourdain, about chasing perfection:
"Your body is not a temple, it's an amusement park. Enjoy the ride."
If you have a fun project idea at your company don't hesitate to reach out