project management

Fully Complete The Project

Many people believe
a project is completed
when the new product is launched
or
the system is installed
or
the marketing campaign
is no longer active.

Those many people are
wrong.

Completing a project
means dealing with the waste
the new product produces.

It means completing
the return on investment calculation.

It means listing all the learnings
from the project
and presenting those findings.

It means figuring out
how to do that same project better.

It means documenting
and putting materials away
and cleaning the space.

I think of the project going live
as 2/3rds of the way
through the project.
There are still a lot of tasks
left to complete.

Fully complete the project.

Check In With ALL Team Members

A loved one
is usually very vocal
about whether or not
she is feeling well.

She hadn’t said anything
recently.
I assumed she was well
health-wise.

I found out yesterday
that her diabetes
is out of control
and her health
is failing scarily fast.

Don’t assume
quiet
means everything is well.

Check in
with ALL members of your team.

Ensure EVERYONE
is on track.

Have A Cheerleader

We all need a cheerleader.

The world is tough.
We often experience failures.
No projects run
smoothly.
There are speed bumps
everywhere.

And there are also
failure-predicting people
everywhere.

We have plenty of
critics.
The world needs
more cheerleaders.

Find someone
who will tell you
again and again
that you’ve got this.
You can do this.
You’re capable and hardworking
and you WILL create
your own good luck.

Turn to that person
when you need a pep talk.
Tell them exactly that
– you need positive vibes.
You need a cheerleader.
You need to hear
you can do this.

Remember to return
the favor.
Be their cheerleader also.

Find yourself a cheerleader.

Project Managers Align

The zucchini/courgette plants
are starting to flower.

These plants have male flowers
and female flowers
and you need both
to create viable fruit.

The male and female flowers
don’t always
flower at the same time.

It is the gardener’s job
to align them,
which sometimes means
picking the male flower
and saving it in the fridge
until a female flower flowers.

Project managers have a similar job.
We align people and tasks and resources
to ensure the production
of a viable product/service.

It doesn’t happen naturally.
It requires work.

Put in that work.

Retreating Is An Option

Are you feeling overwhelmed?

Is the project
you’re leading too big
for you and your team?

Are more and more targets
slipping?

It is okay
to scale back projects,
to say no,
to reduce your scope.

Wars have been won
because the winning leadership
realized
the power of a strategic retreat.

Sometimes we have to
take some steps back
before we can push forward.

If you need to retreat,
craft a plan
and retreat.

Start Small, Then Expand

I’ve expanded
the vegetable garden
this year.

I suspect I’ll expand
the vegetable garden
next year.

Why didn’t I expand it
more
this year?

Wouldn’t that be
more resource efficient?

I didn’t expand it
more
because it is MUCH easier
with gardening,
with business,
with almost every project
to start small
and then expand
than it is
to start large
and then reduce.

We’ve all been overwhelmed
by a project
that is much too large
for us and our team
to handle successfully.

That is soul
and team crushing.
It is stressful.
It usually ends
in failure.

But we often don’t know
how large a project
is too large for us.

The best way
to discover that
is by slowing increasing
the size of projects.

We can usually sense
when the size is
approaching our team’s limit.

And if we don’t
sense that,
we can often reduce
our little bit too large project
by…that little bit.

Start small.
Then expand.

Kill Criteria

When one of my self-published
romance novel series
started selling really well,
I told myself
I’d stop writing in that series
when pre-order sales
didn’t cover production costs.

Making that decision
near the start
of the series
was emotionally
much easier
than making it
when pre-order sales
had dipped.

And it ensured
I ended the series
(the product line)
with much of its profits
intact.

Identifying
clear ending or stopping points
is called
kill criteria
and it can be the difference
between profits
and losses.

It ensures
we don’t wait too long
to end projects.

Establish kill criteria
at the beginning of a project.

The Ability To Organize Is An Essential Leadership Skill

A poster on social media
presented an idea
and then said
he’d lead the project
if someone else would
organize it.

He confessed
to sucking at organizing.

If that is true,
he also sucks at leadership
because organizing
is a must-have skill for a leader.

Organization
of people, supplies,
tasks, timelines, other aspects
is the glue that holds
a project together.

Nothing happens
without it being coordinated
and managed,
which is basically
what organizing is.

And organizing is a learned skill.

If you want to be a great leader,
find an organization technique
that works for you
and embrace it.

Leaders MUST have
the ability to organize.

Skilled Tradespeople Are NOT Project Managers

On the solar installation project,
there was no on site, active
project manager.

They relied on their teams
to manage their parts
of the project.

The solar panel installation
was outsourced.

The team that arrived
was headed
by one of the founders
of the business.

He was skilled at project management
as he actively managed his own business.

That part of the project
went very well.

The electrical part
of the project
was given to
two electricians.

Those electricians were skilled
at being electricians.
They knew f*ck all
about the project management.

That part of the project
was a complete mess.

They had to run
to the store
to buy parts every couple hours.

They installed
random, not-at-all thought out parts.

They did work
out of logical order
and then had to redo it.

The project WAS
eventually complete
but it cost a lot more
and it took a lot longer.

Project management
is a separate skillset.

Don’t assume someone skilled
in other areas
is able to manage a project.

An On-Site Project Manager

You need an on-site
project manager.

This seems obvious
but I’ve recently been a part
of a couple projects
where this didn’t happen.

You can’t manage projects
from a distance.

Because a big part
of project management
is firefighting.
It is quickly dealing
with emergencies
and making those fast decisions.

That’s very difficult to do
if you’re not there,
on the site.

People have to hunt you down
and then describe the situation
over the phone or a video call
and it is impossible to describe
EVERYTHING that is happening.

The nuances WILL f*ck you
and your project up.

With the projects
I was involved in
that didn’t have on-site project managers,
someone else
(one time it was the client)
assumed that role.

These volunteer project managers
didn’t have the same agendas
as the true but off-site project managers.

It was a mess.

Have an on-site
project manager.