3 Quotes for Project Workers

Heard these a thousand times? Think about them now in the context of your current Project work:

"I have been impressed with the urgency of doing. Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Being willing is not enough; we must do." Leonardo DiVinci

"The greater danger for most of us lies not in setting our aim too high and falling short; but in setting our aim too low, and achieving our mark."  Michelangelo

"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; because there is not effort without error and shortcomings; but who does actually strive to do the deed; who knows the great enthusiasm, the great devotion, who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement and who at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly. So that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.”  Theodore Roosevelt

Now, go take on your Project with new vigor!

Make Better Project Connections


Sometimes we talk about Projects as if they are objects that live on their own. Projects never see a start or a completion without people working on them. Every Project ends up with at least one Customer (someone who receives or experiences the result of the project) and an Executor (at least one person who carries out the steps needed to deliver the project). Most of us, however, never work on such "simple" Projects.


Most of us work on Projects that have more than one Customer - often a group of diverse, complicated people who are expecting to experience the benefit of the Project work. Most of us work on Projects with a team of folks doing the Project work with the same issues - they are varied and complex and temperamental and all the rest. To deliver the Project successfully, everyone on the project team needs to be focused on connecting in a way that leads to the desired project results.

To connect, we have to be able to communicate. We have to be able to ask, answer, listen, observe, notice, respond, anticipate, understand, consider, and debate. Some people avoid this part of Project work. They'd rather build or code or make or write or do. You've probably heard that saying that "Work would be fun if it wasn't for the other people involved." 

But, connecting deliberately is a non-negotiable part of Project execution.

How are you doing at connecting? At doing your part to see that you and others working on the Project are asking, answering, listening, observing, noticing, responding, anticipating, understanding, considering and debating for the good of the Project? 

A Few Project Management Realities

Over at Reforming Project Management, Hal uses the recent issues about Toyota vehicles to connect their situation to Project Management. He pointed out some project realities that are worth summarizing:

• There is more that can be known than we have the ability to know.
• Either accept that as the basis of how we design our project environments or ignore it. 
• Project plans can't predict what will happen in 3 weeks, let alone 3 months. 
• Our plans must change. 
• People will make mistakes. 
• People will learn something unanticipated. 
• The circumstances for our customers will change.

But Hal doesn't leave it at that as if to say "Oh, well. Stuff happens!" He wraps it up with:

Manage in a way that every person on our projects and those concerned for our project success observe, speak up and share freely and quickly what they learn. 

Regardless of your views on the Toyota issue (pro or con), Hal links that issue to some important Project advice. You can see the full post with comments here. Thanks, Hal.

Project CHOICE
To do more great Project work, we have to choose more of the Projects on which to focus our time and energy. Great Project work will look different for different people. 

If you haven't been doing this in the past, look for a Project that:

• Has a positive impact on your company, department, or industry.
• Benefits your neighborhood, community, or city. (Every Project doesn't have to be one that provide monetary benefit.)
• Gives you a chance to grow your skills and experience.
• Grows your people skills by managing a larger or more diverse workforce.
• Lets you collaborate on a great team.
• Stretches you in some other way.

If won't be easy to stay on a path to more great Projects. Often, it will require more work - more searching, more networking, and more changes. In a large organization, it may mean more internal competition and more internal positioning. In a small organization, it may mean changing employment or constant internal selling of the idea of great Projects. 

Overall, doing great work on Projects will make you more satisfied in your Project and work life. You'll look back later and see that you really made a contribution rather than just floating along through life.

Experience and REWORK

I've worked with many older and seasoned folks over the years on projects. Often, they had many more years of experience than me. Some of them reported to me on projects. 

One sad thing I noticed about many of these (I won't say all, but it was a common theme), is that they liked to talk constantly about a previous project. Some were hanging on to that one project they had worked on 10 or 15 or more years ago. They wanted everything on the new project to relate directly to that old project. Usually, the conversations were about how they had done it differently on that old project and why couldn't we do it like that on this new one? 

I don't know your experience in this issue. But, for me, these folks were deliberately placing themselves in that "how we did it then" category. It didn't matter that techniques had changed, methods had changed, the law had changed, or that anything else had changed. They wanted it the way it was. 


I thought of this recently in reading REWORK by Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson, Founders of 37signals. In their book (highly recommended for project thinking), they have a section titled "What Does 5 Years Experience Mean Anyway?". The subtitle explains their point - "Year of irrelevance".


It isn't the time you've been employed that matters in the end. It's what you did with that time. Many of those I mentioned above were still living in the past. Many more still are today. To be able to do good project work, you have to learn and grow. Sure, those old experiences can be valuable as lessons for work and life. But, those experiences can't be your whole life.

If you're stuck there, I say you should get out now. Learn about your work from a new perspective. Learn about what's happening in other industries. How are other people and other companies changing as things change?

If you are already advancing, what keeps you moving?