The Chaotic PM

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.

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Let me describe a project manager’s office to you--it’s a real person. The office is not that large--maybe 8x8 feet, but it does have a door and room for a meeting with three team members (four at a push). There’s an L-shaped wooden desk with a desktop computer and monitor on one side and a laptop on the other. There is a network switch tucked at the back with a network cable stretched across to the laptop. The laptop’s power cord also stretches across the desk as do the wires to a couple of speakers that are attached to the laptop--apparently this PM likes listening to music while they work.

The phone is next to the desktop monitor and the handset cord is all twisted up. There’s a headset that sits on the desk next to the phone. Several pens and highlighters are scattered across the desk, and while there is a desk organizer in one corner none of the pens seem to have spent much time in it. There’s also a magnetic paperclip holder--but the only thing in it is a safety pin.

There is a low set of drawers along one wall and a very large whiteboard (probably 6-feet long and 3-feet high) that sits atop of the drawers and leans against the wall. It’s covered with notes in different colored markers with several spelling mistakes and nothing that looks obvious for a PM (no dates or project names, for example).

There are papers …

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