So that's what a project manager does?
Jan. 30th, 2008 10:24 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mbarkerInteresting piece on one of the Japanese shows last night. They had tracked down a professional project manager who works in Saudi Arabia - I think oil refineries, but I'm not sure. BIG projects, anyway.
First they asked him what his most important tool was - and he showed them this spiral notebook. And on each page, he had line after line of action items. Apparently he redoes the list daily, dating it - and he considers his Action Item Log (which is what the spiral notebook turned out to be) as his most important tool.
Second, they had a dramatization of what he considered a "turning point" in one of his projects. Apparently he had made a key presentation to the bosses and customers - all the suits - with his explanation of how he was going to handle some problems that had come up. Lots of details, graphs, and so forth. And the main guy paying for the project looked at him and said, "This all sounds good, but I have one question. How can we make sure that everyone understands our enthusiasm for finishing this project on time?" He thought for a few minutes, then pulled up a slide from his presentation that had the three key dates on it, and told them, "Okay, I want everyone in this room to come up here and stand in front of the slide. We'll take a picture of it, and I'll have that made into posters and put up all around the project." So he got all of the top management to stand in front of a slide with the target dates on it, and publicly commit to making those dates - and that poster became a part of the project legend. Apparently they made the dates, too.
Interesting - the daily grind of details, and the big picture of the bosses all agreeing on the the key dates. Sort of two ends of the spectrum that he manages.
First they asked him what his most important tool was - and he showed them this spiral notebook. And on each page, he had line after line of action items. Apparently he redoes the list daily, dating it - and he considers his Action Item Log (which is what the spiral notebook turned out to be) as his most important tool.
Second, they had a dramatization of what he considered a "turning point" in one of his projects. Apparently he had made a key presentation to the bosses and customers - all the suits - with his explanation of how he was going to handle some problems that had come up. Lots of details, graphs, and so forth. And the main guy paying for the project looked at him and said, "This all sounds good, but I have one question. How can we make sure that everyone understands our enthusiasm for finishing this project on time?" He thought for a few minutes, then pulled up a slide from his presentation that had the three key dates on it, and told them, "Okay, I want everyone in this room to come up here and stand in front of the slide. We'll take a picture of it, and I'll have that made into posters and put up all around the project." So he got all of the top management to stand in front of a slide with the target dates on it, and publicly commit to making those dates - and that poster became a part of the project legend. Apparently they made the dates, too.
Interesting - the daily grind of details, and the big picture of the bosses all agreeing on the the key dates. Sort of two ends of the spectrum that he manages.
