The Four Seasons of Project Management (Part 2)

  Diversity   Organizational Culture  

Why the four seasons of project management? Are they mutually exclusive? Can't I feed the song birds in winter? I do not seek to make a dogmatic declaration of personality styles or work structures, or contrast these findings with rich research. Rather, these are reflections of governing styles and characteristics incumbent in an "actor" playing the role of project manager that we can each reflect upon.

Each style has its characteristic strengths and weaknesses, and a project manager would tend to have shades of each characteristic in their individual repertoire (in Part 1, we looked at The Planner and The Expeditor/Coordinator). However, I've found that one tends to have a predisposition toward a specific style of project management, given specific stimuli and circumstances. I have found myself consciously adopting a different style depending on the business need, with one leading style accompanied by shades of others. The cognizance of such diversity enriches the "management" dimension of project management, helping us look beyond the rule book. Hopefully we will all find an opportunity to be flexible in our styles, adapt as the situation demands and recognize how to align ourselves with our team member's styles and preferences. (And yes, you can feed the song birds in winter!)

The Analyst: Focus on the product

This project manager is more of an analyst, focused on …

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