How PM Snuck Its Way Into My Everyday Life

Michael R. Wood is a Business Process Improvement & IT Strategist Independent Consultant. He is creator of the business process-improvement methodology called HELIX and founder of The Natural Intelligence Group, a strategy, process improvement and technology consulting company. He is also a CPA, has served as an Adjunct Professor in Pepperdine's Management MBA program, an Associate Professor at California Lutheran University, and on the boards of numerous professional organizations. Mr. Wood is a sought after presenter of HELIX workshops and seminars in both the U.S. and Europe.

  Agile   Risk Management   Stakeholder Management   Talent Management  

I never planned to be a project manager, but that is where my career led me. Then again, I never really planned to use PM tools, processes, and techniques in my day-to-day personal life, but I do. This is the story of how project management snuck its way into my everyday life…turning me into a slightly neurotic, but oddly efficient human being.

Let me walk you through how PM processes, tools, and techniques invaded my daily existence, whether I liked it or not…

The Grocery Store Sprint
I once decided to do a quick grocery run. Little did I know I was about to embark on a full-blown project.

• Step 1: create a backlog, aka my shopping list.
• Step 2: Prioritize items based on perishability and store layout (thanks, Kanban board in my head).
• Step 3: Time-box myself to 30 minutes because I had a movie deadline to make.

I swear I was channeling agile with sprints and stand-ups, except my stand-up was me groaning in the aisles while deciding between organic kale and regular kale. By the end, I’d bought three kinds of chips and no kale.

So much for scope control, yet a kudo for wise choices, because I hate kale. (Come on, admit it—you do, too.)

The Family Dinner
Organizing a family dinner is like managing a multi-stakeholder project with conflicting requirements.

I used a spreadsheet to schedule who brings what dish and when to …

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