The Unlikely PMs in the Great Small White North

Andy Jordan is President of Roffensian Consulting S.A., a Roatan, Honduras-based management consulting firm with a comprehensive project management practice. Andy always appreciates feedback and discussion on the issues raised in his articles and can be reached at [email protected]. Andy's new book Risk Management for Project Driven Organizations is now available.

  Leadership  

I’ve accidentally stumbled onto a part of the world where virtually everyone is a project manager.

Okay, that’s a slightly exaggerated attempt to get your attention, but there is an element of truth to it.

Canada is a big country, very big. And while most people live within commuting distance of the big cities, when you go further afield, that size becomes extremely meaningful. This year I moved to a rural area of Alberta. Our home is about 15 minutes from a town of about 15,000 people, and around 30 minutes from another small town with a little over 6,000 people. After that, it’s close to two hours to a city of about 30,000 and more, than three hours to the only big city in the area—Edmonton, with a population a little over one million.

So, while day-to-day needs can be well served locally, if you need a more specialized service, want to buy a more unique item, or simply find a wider selection of brands to choose from, you’re looking at a fairly lengthy round trip. The distance also makes delivery of online orders interesting, with many delivery companies either only serving the area on certain days, or requiring items to be collected from a depot location because they won’t deliver at all. (They won’t be filming an Amazon Prime advert where I live!)

I knew that we were moving to a pretty rural area. But until you start …

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