The A-Z of Project Management Survival

Those of you of an older vintage may remember the flip-flop. A simple logic circuit that can be in one state or another. You get people like that too. Having no clue about anything, they tend not to have any definitive opinion of their own. Instead, they carry about with them the opinion of the last person they discussed a given subject with.

This is generally quite irritating as you can usually have two very different conversations with the same person about the same thing.

"But I thought we had agreed yesterday that the sky was blue?"
"Yes, but I had a meeting with marketing this morning and no I see that it is more of an indigo..."

Fundamentally, such people aren't much use, but there is much to be exploited here. If these people are in decision making positions and you'd like to them to act in your favour, all you have to do is get to them last. Just make them flip to your way of thinking, make sure no one else talks to them before they enter the crucial meeting and the world is yours.

Labels: F, Flip-Flop

This is an important realisation you have to have. Everything is, to some extent, flawed and everything you do is an attempt to reduce the level of imperfection. Everyone makes mistakes, things generally don't go to plan so have to find ways of making sure that you find and correct issues before this is too late. Obviously, this is what review/testing and all the standard project stuff is about. But the crucial thing to remember is that it is the people who are flawed and collectively everyone and everything has to act to reduce problems.

The amount that flaws can be eliminated is simply another aspect of the Bermuda Triangle. If you have enough time and money, you can test/fix/control for many years and you'll get close. This is a space industry thing, very expensive, one shot and it has to work as near to flawlessly as is possible. But even space stuff expects and gets some issues.

Most of us don't work in that kind of industry and our scope for validation and verification is much less. There isn't a problem with this. Its just a balance of risk. A website selling shoes can go live with issues. We won't need a Shuttle mission to repair it.

The key point is, if you accept that things are inevitably flawed then you have to accept that it is your responsibility to organise the process by which collectively the project decides who to handle the flaws.

One obvious characteristic of an arse is that they tend to accept that corners are cut during a project (usually because they are too scared to declare a slip) but then blame people for there being issues at the end. Phrases such as "How did you let this happen?" can be heard. If you accept risk then accept the consequences of the risk not going your way. And, always accept that things are flawed.

Labels: F, Flawed

Its something that almost all text books won't mention but is to blame for more mistakes that almost anything else. As we have already established, most people working in IT are not very good at it and, those that know they are out of their depth, are typically either paralysed or hamstrung by fear. Decisions made in the context of fear are almost always bad ones. Conversely, a good way to spot a Good Guy is see that someone has no fear in any situation.

Fear does very strange things to arses. It has a tendency to make them avoid the truth and to concoct and intricate web of nonsense that they believe sounds more plausible. It also makes them very tetchy and have a strong tendency to snap at people for no reason. Almost always this is because people want to avoid a kicking and are not understand the basic rules of damage limitation.

Sometimes the only thing that stops an Arse being a Good Guy is their ability to handle their fear. Often they are intelligent, decent people who, through lack of bottle alone, make an arse of things. If you are not scared, you are thinking clearly, so always take fear out of the equation.

Labels: F, Fear

The best way to avoid a project management disaster is not to get involved in the project at all. Learn to see the Turkeys coming and duck them with vigour. Do all you can to ensure that those projects are assigned to your less capable friends (see the test under Arses). This is not as unfair as it sounds. Given that they probably can’t deliver any project, giving them the undeliverable to deliver at least gives them a viable excuse for failure.

Here’s a few tips for spotting the ones to avoid:

• If the salesman can’t immediately answer the question “What exactly did you sell?” ( see the entry under it ).


• If the technical architect says ‘no, no, we don’t need a proof of concept, it’ll all work, I’ve read a whitepaper’


• If you’re general manager says ‘we’re going to deliver this one from India’.


• If you get introduced to the team with the words ‘Yes, they’ve been doing mainly mainframe work but they are going on re-training next week’

Labels: F, Failure Avoidance