I am sitting in the Minneapolis airport thinking about projects that I have worked on and it occurs to me that if Jeff Foxworthy had been a project manager that he might have had a different comedy act.  Everyone that I know appreciates Jeff’s take on “You might be a Redneck, if”.  In fact, many of us can find a friend, relative, colleague, acquaintance or politician that falls in that category.  My particular favourite is paraphrased as follows ”If you cut your grass and find cars, refrigerators and furniture, you might be a redneck.”   I remember when my husband and I bought our first house together after we were married and the house at the end of our street absolutely fit that description.  The only difference was they also had play structures, lawn equipment and a myriad of other items in the weeds.  They were personally offended when the city made them cut their small weed plantation and asked us to sign an appeal to the city so that they could maintain their work of art.  We didn’t.

How does this relate to project management and project managers?  I routinely talk to project managers about “Bagging the Evidence”.  It is more important to prove the existence of project management processes, practices and protocols than it is to prove the lack of it.  I hear project managers talk about ‘not doing any of that’ in our company.  In reality, they do ‘some of that’ but no one can prove it.  I would agree with many of you that there are project managers looking for someone else to manage the mess they made so they can get on with ‘looking good’ in front of the sponsors.

So I thought that it would be fun to look at what would be required to prove the existence of project management at work, at home, at play or just doing something you love, like quilting.  With Jeff Foxworthy’s indulgence, here is the project management take on the redneck story.

You might be a project manager if,

• you lead from the front.  You absolutely must be able to demonstrate to your team that you are holding yourself to the same standards that you are holding them.  If they report actual progress on tasks, you do.  If they create change requests, you do.  If they contribute information and ideas, you shut-up and listen.  The title project manager doesn’t give you a licence to own all the good ideas.
• you give credit where credit is due.  See above.  Early in my career, I worked for an individual who was unable to let a letter or report go out the door without her personal edits.  Unfortunately, she didn’t know squat about technology so she almost always put the organization at risk with her modifications.  Her problem!  She needed to be the person who got the credit.  Consequently, she sold a lot of us up the river without paddles.
• you have a current schedule.   You can actually manage the project from the schedule rather than from the mythical network diagram that is in your head.  Since we can’t hook your head to an LCD projector with all your assumptions and display it on a wall for public discussion, it is time to get with the program.
• you can report from ‘said current’ schedule.  I enjoy the excitement when a project manager is asked to provide a report and they take a week to get the project into ‘a state’ where the report can be generated.  Oh! And ! They are the only ones who could possibly do it.
• you actually enter actual progress into the schedule.  This is the ‘yah right’ discussion.  It can’t happen in our organization.  No one will give me the information I need.  Have you ever asked?  I know project managers who spend more time trying to make the update of the schedule someone else’s job.  Just do it.  It is part of your job.
• you have change requests, change order or whatever you call it in your organization for all changes regardless of the size of the change.  It is called history.  If you don’t know why something was requested, how do you know whether it should be done?  How can you defend a team member’s recommendation without documentation?
• the documentation is up to date and visible to all the stakeholders.  One of the reasons that enterprise project management solutions fail is because ‘cowardly’ project managers don’t want anyone  to see anything.  I am all for security and fully understand that there is some information that isn’t for public disclosure.  But, locking everything down on your laptop for job security isn’t just stupid, it is poor legacy planning.

 The lesson is ‘if you want to carry the title, you have to do the work.  You’ll note that I didn’t say that you had to like the work but you have to do the work.”  This falls under statements like, doing it right the first time.  This is a fundamental tenant of quality management. Remember, it is the team that does the work. Some days, you are just the lion tamer.

It strikes me that this could be a fun series.  If you think of anything to contribute, we’ll use it in a future blog.  Once a month, we can add to the list and provide our peers and colleagues with a solid list of what their job description is.

To our Canadian and US customers and friends, Happy Canada Day (July 1)  and Happy Independence Day (July 4).  Have safe journeys wherever you are.

I’ll bet you are wondering what the title has to do with project management. Have you ever watched a child who has been told by their parents to clean their room? The look on their face is best described as shock and awe.  Dejectedly, they stand at the door and look longingly at the mess as if mind over matter will make the room magically clean.  The little gremlins that hide under the bed should be putting things away.  Nothing has happened yet!  It still looks the same!  You can watch the wheels turn as they find a reason, any reason, to do something else.  It is the “I have to go to the bathroom, I need a drink, I need to talk to mom, followed by I have to talk to dad, and then in desperation, can I call great grandma” syndrome.  Anything to avoid crossing the threshold that would mean the cleaning activity has to begin.

I was working with a team last week and it occurred to me that they were a lot like my grandchildren when they are asked to clean their room.  They stare at you as you request that they complete a task.  You know and they know that they don’t know where to start. More importantly, they don’t want to ask you for help.  If they asked for help, they would have to admit that there is something that they don’t know.  Maybe, a little drama will help.  Oh! the public humiliation of it all!  They go for a biology break; they stop at the coffee pot; they detour back to their desk taking the long way hoping against all hope that someone will talk to them and delay their return; and when that fails, they start to tidy their workspace.  It is called procrastination triggered by fear of the unknown.   They have just found ‘their room that needs to be cleaned.’

Where to start with children?  Give them one thing to do at a time.  Instead of saying clean your room, you say “pick up your dirty clothes and put them in the hamper”. Then, you check progress until they are finished.  Then you say “make your bed”.  Then, you check on the progress.  You can get children to do almost anything well if you tell what you want them to do – one step at a time.  Reward them for a good job.

The golden nugget is ‘adults have the same behaviour patterns because we were once children.  Once we learn something, change can be a scary thing.  When working with team members,

• give them one thing to do at a time,
• get them to make a list,
• get them to estimate how much time it will take,
• help them schedule it in to their workload,
• check in regularly, provide counsel when needed,
• and congratulate them for a job well done”. 

Many team members become overwhelmed at the amount of work required to complete a single task and the balancing act that is required to fit one more thing into their daily routine.  The average person working on a project has about 30% of their time available for project work.  If you look at their workload, they are over-allocated by about 300% and don’t know where to start.

As a project manager, it is our job to make sure our team members will give us the good news and the bad news.  I prefer the bad news first, but whatever works for you.  If you have team members that are spinning their wheels, chunk it into bite size pieces. 

Just like the children with the messy room, they need a starting point, basic workflow and the courage to take the first step.  Isn’t amazing what we could have learned just cleaning our room?

When my daughter was small, she was a master of wearing 4 – 5 different outfits a day.  Much to my surprise on laundry day, clothes that I hadn’t seen on her body were back in the laundry.  My immediate response was I wasn’t washing clean clothes that never made their way from the hamper to her dresser or closet depending on the storage requirements.  So at age 8, my daughter was going to do her own laundry. 

The quandary!  How was I going to communicate to her the basic requirements of doing laundry?  She could read but she just wasn’t overly organized when it came to putting her laundry away or choosing the outfit of the day and returning the unused, clean clothes to the appropriate receptacle.

I decided that the best way to provide a framework for laundry was to make a list with detailed instructions just like I would for a project.  I ended up with two lists; one for washing clothes and the other for drying clothes.   My friends and family thought I had lost my mind.  It worked.  After about six months, she didn’t need the list anymore.

The process was expanded to a weekly list on the refrigerator that listed chores by day.  The chores by day model was used to pay a daily allowance instead of  a weekly one.  At the end of the day, we reviewed the list and she received her allowance based on the actual chores completed.  I still have some of the lists downstairs in a box of training material that I used to show project managers that no task is so small that you can’t break it down.  One of the items on the chore list was to do the dishes with two of us responsible for making sure it happened.  If you have two people assigned to do the dishes, it can be broken down into one task that each person will complete (One washes the dishes while the other dries the dishes).  An activity of ‘Do laundry’ can be broken down into washing the clothes, drying the clothes, ironing the clothes and putting the clothes away.  One activity just became individual tasks.

The golden nugget for today is ‘that it is never too early to learn to organize the work.  Work breakdown structures allow you to chunk the work into bite size pieces.  The bite size pieces can be communicated one at time for children and some adults or all at once to others.  One of the most important responsibilities of a project manager is to communicate the ‘what, where, when, why and who’ of a task.’

The lesson learned from this exercise is ‘if your mother did everything in your house when you were growing up, don’t tell her that you are practising project management techniques on your children and partner.’  My mother and daughter remind me frequently that my family isn’t supposed to be my personal lab experiment.

It is over.  I delivered the video and everyone is happy with the results: the bride and groom, the parents, my husband and family.   My family are really glad because they won’t have to hear the music anymore.

Weddings seem to create a rather interesting dynamic in the world of project management.  No one, and I mean no one, wants to disagree with the bride.  She is absolutely right even when the air that she is breathing is largely made up of some rarefied gas that the rest of us don’t get to share.  It is like having a sponsor with a single focus on a mandatory delivery date.  The only way to meet the target is to ante up the necessary cash and people to make it all happen.  When it is all over, the relief is monumental, the bride and groom go on a honeymoon and the everyone else goes into hiding.  We hope that all goes well on the honeymoon. 

As a favour, I agreed to create a rolling video of family photos with appropriate music and timing.  Never having done a job like this, I seriously underestimated the amount of time it would take.  Every tweak  (better known as a change), no matter how small, caused a major impact on the timing of the video.  It is the first time that I really understood that the size of the picture file could affect the timing of the slides and alignment on the music.  I have a whole new appreciation for what video and audio editors do.  I have also decided it just isn’t the career choice for me.

I was only responsible for the video and audio.  We will never know for sure how much time it ‘really’ took Allie to collect all the pictures and put the first cut of the slides together.  But I am a project manager, I tracked my actual time.  I now know how much time it will take ‘for me’ to create a another self-running version of a slide show with audio.  200 hours!  I am told that Allie probably spent 2.5 to 3 hours for every hour that I spent.  She had the hard work of prying pictures and stories out of the contributors.  The level of effort in retrospect was staggering and it was a volunteer effort. 

So the question of the day is ‘how much time does it take to complete those infamous personal tasks on the round-to-it, the honey-do, or if I win the lottery list?’  Most of us don’t know.  It isn’t because we can’t collect the information; it is because we think of the work as just something that we do on our personal time.  It isn’t important to know how much time something takes at home.

But it is, see the examples below.

Iron a shirt:     15 – 20 minutes a shirt (It is because I was in the military and am overly concerned about the perfect shirt. Knife-edged creases and all that good stuff.  If you have 10 shirts at 20 minutes per shirt, it is a whopping 3.5 hours.) 

Make dinner:     45 minutes to 4 hours depending on what type of dinner it is.  (My apologies to Rachael but I still haven’t mastered the 30 minute meal.)

Shovel the driveway:     3 hours, minimum (We live in the country and have a snow blower.  If we had to use a real shovel, it would take all day.)

Making a wedding dress:    100 hours (this is because the bride kept gaining and losing weight and every time she came for a fitting, she was a different size.)

The golden nugget for today is ‘even personal commitments need to be estimated, scheduled, costed, tracked and evaluated for value.’  It sounds strange.  But! It is so true. 

The lesson is ‘when you think about the number of things that are going on in your life today and wonder how you will get it all done, you are a candidate for project management.’  It is the only way that I know of to finally understand how much time it takes to complete any activity or task.  You can start practising project management today.  Use the following steps to get started:

1. Make a list of activities and / or tasks
2. Estimate the amount of time each task will take
3. Determine whether you need someone to help you with the task  (i.e. plumber, carpenter, child, partner)
4. Schedule the work
5. Track the amount of time it took to complete the task
6. Record the results in a journal

It will make your life much better.

Based on your feedback and ideas, we are going to start a weekly “Drive By Project Management Moment” post.  Your submissions for topics will be gratefully accepted.

It has finally happened.  The Prima Donna or Prima Don, let’s be gender neutral here, PM has finally stripped a mental gear.  They have done everything that they thought would motivate the team and make themselves look good.

They have tried

• threatening team members.  Check.  Didn’t work, moving on.  
• bird dogging you to the point where you want the ground to open and take them straight to Dante’s 8^th Circle of Hell. As they say in Monopoly(r), “do not pass go, do not collect $200.00.”  Check. Didn’t work moving on.
• refusing to use the tools of the organization.  More on that in a future post.  Check. Didn’t work, moving on.

The list is endless but you know that they have left the reality of the project when they start bad-mouthing team members behind their backs.

The golden nugget for today is that “Prima Donna or Prima Don Project Managers have a big ego and a small mind.”  They have little to low self-esteem and quite possibly little to low knowledge, skills and experience.   A not so subtle reminder:  Certification is no guarantee of expertise but it is just a guarantee that they could pass an exam.  In the deep murky recesses of their brain, they believe that if they can sow enough discord that they will prevail.

The lesson-learned is as the old saying goes, “give them enough rope to hang themselves.  Observation is a great learning tool.  Watch and learn.”  It will take time but eventually the chest pumping and thumping will stop and their real persona will show itself.  They will move on to the next job opportunity and you will have peace and quiet.

I am in south Florida today attending a conference hosted by John Maxwell and his team of dedicated people.

In late June, I made a decision to become part of a group of people world-wide that are part of the John Maxwell team. Why? Because, John Maxwell is a man of principle and integrity.  Today, our topic was coaching and leadership.  I thought about the project managers and leaders that I would work for again in a heart beat, no questions asked.  They were wise.

I thought that I would share the top three traits with you that I think could be the basis for a wise project leader or manager. I would encourage you to use this list when making your decision to accept the position of project manager, program manager, portfolio manager or any position with the title manager.

1. Gather information wisely. Too many of us are removed from the team. We think because we are project managers that we don’t need to lead, we just need to direct.  We don’t know the issues or more importantly we don’t know our team members.  I am not talking about education, money or the inconsequential stuff.  I am talking about whether or not your team members will follow you to where you need them to go.  I hear to many times that project managers make uninformed decisions.  If you aren’t listening, you will miss the truth of the situation or situations that your team members face every day.  Every piece of information, regardless of how small or seemly inconsequential, is important until it is assessed for its applicability and priority.

2. Prepare thoroughly. Read everything.  Make an informed decisions. Evaluate every task, every risk, every issue, every change, and the edicts issued from on high.  If you aren’t able to defend your team and provide the rationale for the ‘current state of the project’, you aren’t a leader … you are a record keeper.  Talk to every team member, listen to their counsel, and defend their right to communicate the way things are not the way someone else wants them to be.

3. Understand what is at stake.  If you don’t listen to the team members, they will stop following you.  It is all about trust.  If they don’t believe that you are going to be the wall of reason between them and the rest of the world, they will stop listening to you, stop being the voice of reason, and at the absolute worst, stop communicating with you.

You should create a vision statement that communicates to them that you understand what is at stake if you fail in your mission as their leader.  My vision statement is ‘my role in this project is to facilitate the team’s success‘.  If I am doing anything that isn’t in alignment with that vision, tell me and I’ll fix it.

The bottom line is that somewhere between 70 – 90% of projects fail.  It depends on the what is measured, when it is measured and whether or not people are openly disclosing the truth. I can tell you honestly that not all projects that I have managed would be considered successful depending on how management measured success, whether or not the company is publicly traded and whether the senior managers were into public humiliation.

In addition to the Guide to the PMBOK(r), I am convinced that every project manager should have to read John Maxwell’s book entitled Failing Forward.  Failing isn’t the problem.  Wise project leaders understand that failure is how we learn, that lessons come from failure and success and that all lessons have value.

I have been part of a stream of consciousness on a LinkedIn forum about the characteristics of a great project manger.  For the spelling and grammar purists out there, the word is currently on the forum spelled as manger rather than manager.  I am being to wonder if the most important characteristic of a project manager shouldn’t be an ability to spell, read and comprehend the content of a message.

As I thought about the forum and the abundance of responses, it occurred to me that the most important leaders in politics, the military, in business and personally have always lead from the front.

In the interest of disclosure, I am now a Founding Member of the John Maxwell Coaching, Speaking and Training Team.  As I listened to John Maxwell communicate his expectations of our team, it occurred to me that he is the kind of person that as a project manager that I have always enjoyed working with, have tried to emulate and will try emulate in the future.

John showed us by his example what he expects and what he values.  I am going to take his message and make it project management centric.

1. Project Managers must value people.  Early in my career, I worked with a gentleman name John Fraser.  He always told us that we were the most important resource he had in his project.  He stood between us and the rest of the world.  When the going got tough, you could always go into John’s office and talk.  He would listen and help you come to a resolution.  Thanks John for a lesson that has served me well to this day.
2. Project Managers must value process.  To many times, project managers don’t walk the talk.  They create scope statements, schedules, risk registers, issues logs and a myriad of documents that return no value to the stakeholders.  One of biggest challenges that I get is we can’t do that, our project managers don’t do that, or our certified project managers don’t do that.  If project managers can’t follow a consistent process, they are putting their team members at risk.  From where I sit, it is unconscionable.
3. Project Managers must value personal and team growth.  You can never learn to much but you can certainly learn to little.  Project Managers who never get out of their cubicle or issue mandates from behind closed doors are not project managers .. in fact, I am having trouble finding a polite word I would use to describe them.  Many of us have worked with project managers who have learned nothing from previous projects, refuse to use current tools, refuse to share information and … this list could go on forever.  In order to be a project manager to be an effective leader, you must provide opportunities for your team, your stakeholders, and you to learn and grow.

We must lead from the front.  A project manager must:

• develop a course of action -  Regardless of how big your ego may be, you will never have all the answers.  Give your team a chance to be involved and be part of the solution.
• communicate the project goal and objectives – Know your stakeholders and better yet let them know you.  You can contribute a lot to the team by being the person who does the preliminary ground work.  You don’t need to have all the answers but you need to have enough to get started.
• obtain a priority – Let the stakeholders know what the priorities are .. think of this as risk mitigation
• keep the core team in the loop – There should be no surprises, this must be a bi-directional communication channel.  What this really means is that you are open to hear how things really are rather than how you want them to be.  If you are prone to fits of anger, you will never know the real truth.
• scan the horizon for problems, risks, and deviations.  The nature of project management is that you have to be prepared for changes to scope, schedule, cost and quality.  These are the minimum changes that will occur.  Always be looking for the deviations.

The title isn’t as important as being willing to say ‘ Hi, my name is (put yours here).  I am your project manager.  My role is to stand between you and the rest of the world so that the team can be successful.  If you will always tell me the truth, I will work with you to find solutions.  Your experience is as important as mine.  I have some answers but not all the answers.  Your answers have value.  If we aren’t in sych, tell me.  We can fix anything as long as all the cards are on the table.”

Just a reminder, if you can’t look yourself in the mirror and know that you have done your best for your team, you are in the wrong position, fix it.  Get out in front.  No one even won observing from the rear.

To quote J. C. Watts, ‘character is doing what is right, when no one is looking.’

Anyone who knows me well knows that I watch NCIS.  It is one of the shows that I watch over and over.  Although subtle, there is always a leadership lesson in the show.  Sometimes, it is as simple as referring to the list of Gibbs’ rules.  Everyone knows what the rules are.  In fact, there is an iPad application so the rules are at your fingertips.  There is also a plethora of fun stuff such as mugs, shirts and other cool goodies that you can purchase with your favourite saying.

There are two entries for rule number 3.  The one that resonates is from Franks “don’t believe what you are told, double-check.”  I would expand it a little.  Don’t believe what you are told, what you see, and what you read.  Double-check everything.

I thought it would be fun, in fact interesting, to start a list of Alchemist Rules that apply to the world of leadership and project management.  After all, what is a compulsive project manager to do on a Saturday afternoon in a hotel room in a blizzard?

I have been a project manager for many years.  In fact, I have been a one for more years than I care to remember.  I have worked with some wonderful people and each of them has contributed to the list of rules over the years.

So here goes, the first of three rules.

Rule 25:  You only get answers to 100% of the questions that you ask.  Early in my career, I worked with a great project manager named John Fraser.  John was a very pragmatic man.  We were working on a project implementing new technology for a retail organization.  He was chairing a team meeting.  The team was at the table discussing all the things that we didn’t know.  He asked us if we had contacted the vendor and asked our questions.  Then, he said, “They can’t answer what you don’t ask.”  There was dead silence in the room.  John was completely right.  One should never make assumptions without checking with the source.  If you never ask the question, you will never get an answer, even if the answer is I don’t know, I don’t care or No.

Rule 26:  If you don’t like the answer, accept it and move on.  Over the last week, I have been more exposed than at any time in my life.  As a project manager, you are paid to answer the questions that are asked even if the answer isn’t popular.  In my career, I have worked with stakeholder who didn’t like the answer and spent an inordinate amount of time asking the same question in hopes of a new or different answer.  Unfortunately, life is like that.  You will never get the answers you want to all the questions you ask.  I always tell my team that they don’t have to like the answer but it is the answer to your question. Asking the same questions repeatedly won’t get you a different answer.   Accept it and move on.  To quote one of my team, “It is what it is.”

Rule 35:  You will never know everything I think and I don’t have to tell you, get over it.  In fact, sometimes it is safer that way.  I tend to call a spade a shovel and let it go.  Life is too short to worry about what people think about you or what you think about them.  I spent a few hours with my mentor.  He is a really cool human being.  His first questions were “are you okay and did you tell them everything that you were thinking in the moment.”  My reply was “H*** NO, I haven’t told them what I thought yet this week.”  He laughed and said “Good.  You are learning.”  We talked about my opinions and what I had learned.  My response was “that you will never know everything that I think.  It would be safer that way.”  His reply was “I’ll get over it.  In fact, I won’t own it either.”  He is a very wise man.  I think he is a cross between Yoda® and Sun Tzu.  He is always the pragmatist.

Over the last week or so, my family has been placed in the position of defending my honour and for that I thank them.  They are very cool people and they rock!

For the rest of you that were and continue to be supportive, you rock!

For all of you that didn’t, start at rule 25, work your way through rule 26 and then take rule 35 to heart.

As events present themselves, I will add to the rules.  Have a great weekend.  If you are in the mid-western part of Canada and the US, please stay indoors and safe.

“He who asks is a fool for five minutes, but he who does not ask is a fool forever.”  Chinese proverb

I was sitting in a Toyota dealership minding my own business today.  The TV was on in the background when there was a breaking news bulletin.  Usually breaking news bulletins are overwhelmingly negative.  In this case, the Indianapolis Colts announced that they were releasing Peyton Manning from his contract.  I will agree if you are a Colts fan, it wasn’t good news.

I watched the announcement in amazement.  Peyton Manning and Jim Irsay made a joint statement and took questions from the press.  They made sure that the press and the public knew that this had been in the works for a long time.  They were discussing the health and viability of a team that they both love.

Peyton said ”We all know that nothing lasts forever.  Times change, circumstances change, and that’s the reality of playing in the NFL.  This has not been easy for Jim and this has certainly not been easy for me.”

This was a divorce handled with style and panache.  They admitted that they had a joint goal .. the best interests of the Indianapolis Colts franchise, the members of the team, and Peyton Manning.

Regardless of the speculation, I congratulate Peyton and Jim for their obvious respect for each other.  They have demonstrated to the world that with enough work and respect even a negative and be viewed as a positive.

The lesson from both men is that “you  can put the organization ahead of self and come out ahead.”  This is a joint win for both men and Colts fans.

Congratulations for being a class act.

We left home at 10:45 on Sunday morning for a road trip without a scope of work, a schedule or a list of things to achieve.  I am a project manager by profession and passion.  The very thought of leaving for any adventure without a scope, budget, schedule, and technology makes me nervous.  On this trip, the cell phones won’t work in a large part of rural Ontario, Minnesota and Wisconsin.  Horrors!  How will I ever survive without my umbilical cord to the world?  Very well, as it turns out.

We were driving to Racine because my flight couldn’t be moved up.  There were no seats available.  A direct result of July 1 and July 4 falling in the same week.  When Canadians and our US cousins travel on the same weekends, it means the all seats are booked.  The majority of the planes are 50 seaters.  Flying standby means that my emergency does not create an urgency on Delta’s part.  Driving was the risk mitigation response.  The trip will cover 2800 kilometres return in 7 days.  A couple of those days will be driving the west side of Lake Superior so it will be good thinking time.

As we travelled through Northwestern Ontario to Fort Frances, the scenery was absolutely amazing.  Every few kilometres, there was a small lake with cabins and people enjoying the 25 degree Celsius weather.  The silence was strangely comforting.

It occurred to me that this area of the continent would provide a number of great team building activities for project teams.  Our teams spend a lot of their time glued to their chairs creating and delivering products and services for our customers.  I know some PMs whose teams are at work before any self-respecting chicken is awake and leave after the owls and bats are out.  We need to do better at encouraging our team members to take a break.

We were approaching Duluth, MN and the cell phone hasn’t pinged once.  In fact, I haven’t been tempted to pick it up.  I am writing my blog the old fashioned way; using a pen and paper.  I honestly can’t remember when I wrote other than to keep my journal current.

As we drove down the road, I realized that it is hard when we are focused on the here and now to remember that there are times when you should take time for you, your family, and your team to just be you.  There are days when I don’t believe that I will have the impact on the world of a John Maxwell but I do have the opportunity to interact and impact the lives of every individual that I meet.  I can be an ambassador for change in the project management profession.  I can advocate for the best interests of the stakeholders and their ability to support and deliver to the very best of their abilities.

“Take the time to enjoy the world around you.

It goes by faster than you think.”

We are published.  Late last fall, a group of 25 dedicated project managers were tapped to contribute to a book on the most important lesson that we had learned as project managers.  Dave and Derek were instrumental bringing this book to market.

Project management is a little like herding lizards.  Lizards are all over everywhere.  They can climb walls, scurry across ceilings, and hide in plain sight.  More often than not, projects exhibit similar behaviour.  You never know how they will end, where they will go, how much they will cost, or whether it will be considered a success.  When I was asked to contribute to the book, I went back to the 90 or so journals where I have recorded my thoughts, ideas and charted my progress over the years.  I average about 4 journals a year.  Some years, more but never less than three.  There was a common theme in the journals.

“You Can’t Phone It In”  is my topic.  As I went through the journals, I could see that it was the times when I took shortcuts that caused the most grief.  Not just for me.  The impact was felt by my project stakeholders, my family and my friends.

In future blogs, I will walk you how the lessons turned from notes to process and from process to habit.

“Lessons are permanent only if you do something with the lesson.”

Check out The Keys to Our Success on Amazon or Barnes and Noble.