PMcrunch

In today’s economy, managers of all kinds are under pressure to right-size their businesses or business units. With the contraction of the economy, sales decreases trigger the need for rethinking, resizing, and reshaping throughout any organization. Projects and programs are no different. Let’s take a look.

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Most of us are familiar with the old story of the tortoise and the hare. They raced each other one day and the hare raced off to a rapid start, took a nap, and continued the race in a cycle of rapid sprints and long naps. By contrast, the tortoise plodded along slowly but steadily to the end of the race, albeit at a very slow pace throughout. In the end, the tortoise actually won. While slow and steady may win the race, the best teams make the most out of both the tortoise and the hare. Here are my thoughts.

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Sunk costs are exactly as the name implies: they are costs that are “sunk”. The money spent is irretrievable. It is gone, history, sunk. However, often there is either a misunderstanding or an emotional attachment to money that was spent. This is a difficulty that we, as forward looking project managers, need to remember.

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Often times, in the day to day course of business, as well as life in general, we resist certain conditions if they are not favorable in some way to us. I would call this less resistance to change and more a matter of not accepting the inevitable.

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The learning curve was “invented” many years ago. It refers to the competitive advantage derived from having learned a great deal about a product, service, market, or other competitive factors along the way. The learning curve can be a tremendous source of competitive advantage to organizations that have rode it upwards, especially when compared to those who have not yet accomplished that learning.

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The Project Management Institute, Prince II, and numerous other project management centric organizations have, for some time, had at their core that there is great an broad value to the application of structured and formal project management. At the same time, people have been managing projects really for about as long as humans have existed, albeit with varying levels of complexity. The question is, what is the value of formal project management?

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I recently listened to a Wharton podcast where a unique perspective on these turbulent times was cited. The book, entitled “Your Job Survival Guide: A Manual For Thriving In Change” by Dr. Gregory Shea and Robert Gunther. This book apparently lays out strategies for dealing with turbulent times. But what really caught my eye (or ears) is the reference to whitewhater versus an ocean liner as a description for work environments today. Let’s take a look.

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As project managers we are responsible, typically, for our specific projects. Sometimes we might be working on portfolio management and sometimes we may be working in a PMO-type environment that offers project management help around the organization. However, more often than not, we are focused on our individual projects. Regardless of where you fit in to this spectrum, it is good to take a look at the kinds of projects that your company is implementing right now, as this can foreshadow the future for the organization.

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We heard it said many times that people skills are very important. However, we do see a great emphasis, whether it is in project management frameworks, or MBA programs, or Six Sigma, or any other approaches that there is a noticeable lack of people skill development embedded in the program.

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For many years now, the debate over global warming and environmental consciousness has raged. This debate has become deeply embedded into the political consciousness, especially in the United States, but also elsewhere in the world. One thing is for sure: this debate will continue for a long time to come, and it will be a long time before any claims are proven indisputably accurate. So, the question is, how can we incorporate environmental correctness into our projects and programs?

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