up, I want to be held accountable for things I can’t control and get blamed for things I was not responsible for.” Becoming a PM is not a choice—it is something that happens to you (see Figure 1.5). It can happen for a variety of reasons that all play out across your life like a really slow moving, painfully dysfunctional, superhero origin story. There are some who embrace it with pride and some who spend years trying to pretend it isn’t true. Some PMs are driven with a hunger to solve the impossible riddle of finding the “right” way to do it, and some come to terms with the fact that there is no one perfect way to handle all projects.
FIGURE 1.5
The Dark Knight . . . of Projects. Everything is a project, and he’ll save them all.
I’ve been managing projects for over 20 years and at various points in time, my answer to the question of “What does it mean to be a project manager” has been very different. Early on, I thought it was about managing work, then I thought it was about getting people to do stuff, then I went from following the PMBOK (A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge) to abandoning it and “PM” because I wanted to BE AGILE! I spent a lot of time stuck on that last one, hiding in shame at Agile events because I am a PMP. Eventually, I got past that and decided to accept what I am. Agile or not, I am a PM.
I was taught how to be a project manager by a guy named John Dmohowski. He was brought into a web shop I was working at to train me and another guy. He gave us each a book written by Dick Billows and said, “When I’m done with you, everything is a project.” I think that may have been the truest thing that anyone has ever said to me. Once someone teaches you to think through things in work breakdown structure, you can’t not see things that way. It permanently warps the way your brain works. You learn to see things and break them down in a way that normal people can’t. And once you learn about risk management, you stop caring whether the glass is half empty or half full. The glass becomes a fragile container of liquid that may fall to the floor, shatter, and cut people so . . . Band-Aids, we’re going to need lots of Band-Aids . . . just in case.
My favorite example of a project manager was Radar O’Reilly from M*A*S*H. Radar always knew what was coming before it happened. He always heard the choppers before anyone else. Everyone took him for granted—until he got sent home and Klinger tried to do his job. It was only in his absence that people understood the true depth of his value. A good PM is like that. If they are doing their job well, it often seems like they aren’t really doing anything at all. But take them out of the equation and wheels fall right off the horse.
I’m over 20 years into this job of being a PM. It is my chosen profession and when asked what I do, I usually respond by saying, “I get hit in the stomach with a bag of oranges for a living.” (See Uncle Bobo from The Grifters.) But now, with all this experience, all this time, all these failures and a few successes, my job is not about a schedule, or deliverables, or risk, or Gantt charts or Burndown charts, status reports, or having a certification . . . all those things come into play, but they are not what I do. My job is simple and impossible. I love doing it, I am awesome at it, and every day is an adventure in learning how to suck less at it.
I am a project manager. I hack people for a living.
TL; DR (Too Long; Didn’t Read)
Solid, practiced project management skills are critical to everyone, whether you’re a full-time project manager or absorbing the role for your project team. To fully understand how you can best serve in that role, consider the following guidelines:
• What does the role mean to your team, and what can you do to uphold it?
• How do you look for project risks and act on them with confidence before they become bigger issues?
• How can you be an honest, direct communicator for the sake of your team and clients?
• How can you be open to learning and adapting to people, situations, and projects?
• What does it take to embrace all of the tasks that fall to your role, such as estimating projects, creating plans, managing scope, motivating teams, and so on?
• Can you stick to your guns and do what is best not only for you, but also for the project?
CHAPTER 2
Principles over Process
The World of Project Management Methodologies
Devise a Methodology That Will Work for You
Principles for Digital Project Management
There’s not a perfect toolkit for any PM or project. Find the ones that work for you and make your own masterpiece.
I’m terrible with directions. Me and any piece of IKEA furniture in a room is a setting for disaster. Anger, curses, quitting. I’ve always been a fan of doing my own thing, on my own time, my own way. Sure, that sometimes means accepting failure and going back to the directions to do something “the right way,” but that’s just a part of my process. It’s the way I have always been.
When I was a child, I would draw for hours. For a long time, I would focus on drawing people—characters I created, people drawn from photos, and even family members. It felt like a natural talent that I was expressing on my own, and I truly enjoyed it. The hobby began to get a little more serious as I got older, and my parents enrolled me in classes. My first life drawing course was eye-opening. I walked in thinking “I got this” and left the first class feeling like I had been doing it wrong all along. The teacher presented a specific way, in steps, that you should draw a body and a face. It wasn’t the way I approached it. So I tried the new way, and the outcome was the same.
So what did I do? I decided to use a mash-up of the techniques, and I think that helped me to be better and to hone my own craft.
Most people think project management is just about process or methodology. Those people are wrong. Project management is about so much more: delicately handling communications, having empathy for the people involved in your projects, motivating those people when things go sideways, problem solving, scouting and assessing red flags and making sure they don’t become real issues, and above all, providing project leadership that inspires great work and a positive team environment. The methodology is just a part of the PM puzzle, and depending on your project or organization, you’ll handle it in a firm or flexible way. That’s where formal training can come in handy, because anyone can truly learn and follow a documented process. While it’s helpful to have guidelines to keep your
