Project managers love to plan. One of my favorite planning quotes comes from Dwight D. Eisenhower: Plans are nothing; planning is everything. Sometimes even the best project managers fall in love with their plans. When they get too committed to those plans, however, they lose the ability to respond nimbly to the curve balls thrown in every project. Nimbleness is one of the key tools in a project manager’s toolkit.
In project management, a work breakdown structure conveys the work behind project scope; aids estimating, assigning work, and tracking progress; and more. Breaking work down can also act as a hack for getting started (or unstuck) in smaller assignments or personal projects.
Good communication is important on the smallest of projects. My co-author Jim Ewing and I were in the middle of a very small project: designing the cover of the comedic thriller we wrote. Things were chugging along when suddenly design elements were in a big messy pile like the catch of the day. As our protagonist, Juice Verrone, would say: “Is this some kind of a joke?” Sadly, no. Our project was derailed (temporarily) by poor communication.
Have you ever gotten jazzed up listening to an executive talk about what a project or program is going to do for the company? Big things, I tell you! This project is going to jet-fuel the organization! Go team! Then, you’re tapped to manage the project. As the excitement wears off, the realization dawns that you have NO IDEA what the project is really supposed to do.
The leadership theme continues — mainly because I attended the 2012 PMI Mile Hi Spring Symposium, whose theme was “Leadership: Winning strategies for achieving project success.” I didn’t yawn once, not even after the great lunch buffet. In fact, I got goose bumps a couple of times.
The first thing I think of when I think about leadership: I was a bad employee. I wasn’t a bad employee because I did bad work. On the contrary, I did great work and customers loved me. But I always had problems with the management in the companies I worked for. I was told I had a bad attitude — and I did. (Since I’m a terrible follower, I had better learn to be a good leader.) Then, I read Stephen Covey’s 7 Habits of Highly Effective People and realized the source of my “problems.”
My first experience with “drinking from a fire hose” was in college. The three days I spent in Phoenix at Project Conference 2012 brought back those memories. For me, the conference was a whirlwind of attending presentations, meeting exhibitors, catching up with old friends, and meeting new ones. I had good intentions of blogging during […]
I’ve never been to a peep show. Really. But I imagine they’re a lot like authoring a book (or other projects for that matter). Of course, a peep show costs a few bucks whereas the price I pay to write a book is hundreds of hours of my life and a savage brain pummeling. During […]
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