Archive for 'project management'

Looking back over the past century, when did we begin to worry so much about risk that we have stopped living on the edge of possibilities and strayed back to the safety of the ensured? Just think in the past one hundred or so years we have seen the invention of the modern automobile allowing humans to travel faster than ever before and allowing easier travel over great distances. Let us not forget about the Wright Brothers who with their invention of the airplane allowed humans to take flight. Moreover, if we are talking about airplane it must be mentioned the invention of the rocket allowing humans to take that giant leap, a huge risk, and leave our planet Earth for the first time ever! Something that most thought to be impossible not that many years prior.

These are great achievements just in a short period but if we look even further back we see even greater risks that humanity has achieved. One that quickly pops to mind is the journey of Christopher Columbus to sail west across the vastness across the Atlantic Ocean in an effort to find the East Indies. What a risk not only Christopher Columbus took along with his sailors but also King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella who financed the trip! One wonders though how many risk mitigation strategies they had in place or what type of risk identification they took before authorizing the trip.

Obviously, in each of these cases throughout history risk management has played a part to one extent or another. When NASA sent Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins to the Moon, the risks were determined and mitigated for the issues that might arise on their journey. However, would that be even possible today? With risk management one of the top buzzwords across corporate America today, can we even begin to envision the next hundred years achieving as much as we have in the past? As a project manager, I have seen countless cases of project failures and one area that is constantly focused on as a cause of the failure is risk management. We seem to think that we can prepare for every eventually and then create a plan to mitigate or defuse those risks. But at times, all we can do is hope for the best and prepare for the worst. Using the example of Apollo 11 again, we see that President Nixon had two speeches prepared, one for the success of the mission, and one if we never were to see those astronauts again.

Sometimes we need to realize we are not perfect and no matter how much risk management you put into a project there is no way you will be able to fully understand all of the risks that may arise. This is especially true for our ventures on the edge of possibilities. If we do not ignore the risk of taking a step over that edge, we will no longer be able to push the road of possibilities even further into the realm of the impossible. Risk management is a benefit to helping control costs, reduce failure, and keeping a project on what is usually a tight schedule to begin with but too much risk management is a risk unto itself. Is too much risk management holding you back from reaching the edge of possibility?

A few weeks ago I saw a message on Twitter from Peter Taylor, aka @TheLazyPM, offering his book The Lazy Project Manager for free on Amazon.com.  Not being able to pass up anything that’s free, let alone a book on the topic of project management, I went to “purchase” it on Amazon.  Unfortunately, it turned out that Amazon has two stores, one in the UK and one in the US and the one in the US hadn’t gone free yet.  But after hearing about the problem Peter was gracious enough to e-mail me a PDF copy of his book which I just finished reading today and what an enjoyable project management book it was!

Now just because the title of the book has the word lazy in it don’t take that too literally.  What is truly meant is ‘productive laziness’ or doing things the smart and effective way so you’re not running around yelling “the sky is falling” every afternoon!  As someone who is always looking for ways to increase both my, and my team’s, efficiency this book hit right at home.  For me it only makes sense to truly believe the old adage of “work smarter, not harder”.  And the smarter you can work as a project manager, the lazier you can be.  On my quest as a lazy Project Manager in Training there were ten takeaways I learned through The Lazy Project Manager.

1. During the initiation and closeout of a project is when a lazy Project Manager has to work the hardest but this sets you up to be a good lazy PM during the execution of the project.
2. Always stay in front.  From the moment you start on the project you need to look the part and act the part of an effective project manager.
3. Know your project sponsor like they were your best friend and ensure you know what they want from you as the PM.
4. Scope changes and project creep will happen but the lazy PM will use a proven change process to keep the creep in check.
5. Ensure effective communication that best fits the situation.  Stop e-mailing and go have a conversation!
6. Have fun!  Seriously!  Oh, laugh and smile too!
7. Those risks and issues that get put into logs and registers will actually occur so stay calm when they do while you process the issue, delegate if possible, and deal with the problem.
8. Be the best project team that you can be!  Or at least get the best project team that you can.
9. Don’t necessarily have an open door policy but instead have open and honest communication with your project team.
10. Just like it ain’t over until the fat lady sings so too the project isn’t over until it’s over.  Go through those lessons learned reviews but also share those lessons too.

But don’t be truly lazy.  What you see here is only .000004% of the knowledge you’ll gain by reading this book.  Go to Amazon right now and buy The Lazy Project Manager for yourself.  It’s definitely a book you’ll want to keep in your PM library!

On a final note, this is day two of the thirty-day blogging challenge I’m participating in thanks to @nikkipilkington.  Today’s “challenge” was to write a “top tips” blog entry which I figure I kinda met the goals of.  Any comments or feedback on this blog post are most welcome!

About a month after giving my first speech at the PMIWDC#01 Toastmasters club my Toastmasters mentor was asking me when I was planning on giving my second speech.  It so happens that one of the more experienced Toastmasters was listening in and suggested that I particpate in the upcoming humorous speech contest (Who me? Funny?).  As a project management club we had also been talking about how dry of a topic the PMBOK, Project Management Body of Knowledge, is and he challenged me to take on the PMBOK for a humorous speech.  Backing down from a challenge is not in my blood so challenge accepted!  I quickly realized how hard it was going to be to make a very dry subject such as project management humorous.  I then thought of using the PMBOK term itself as the subject of the speech but what funny acronym could I build out of the letters P.M.B.O.K.  After much searching and many different ideas it finally came to me while I was in the shower.  Project Management: Beer of Kool-Aid?  From there the rest of the speech came naturally and I actually won the club contest with the speech!  Yes, my humor has been validated by others! LOL  Hope you enjoy.