A Resolutions Model for the Career PM

Michelle Stronach has over 20 years of experience in the project management field, with experience creating successful PMOs and implementing project, portfolio management and IT governance frameworks. Michelle truly appreciates the value of feedback and welcomes comments on her articles. https://twitter.com/mlstronach

  Career Development  

It is January and I am sitting in my frosted sunroom at the cabin reflecting about the year just past and the one just starting. It's been a crazy year, but then again every year seems that way. The sunroom isn't heated. In the winter it normally acts as a mud room--housing wet boots, visitor coats that won't fit into our closet and discarded boxes that held holiday gifts a short while ago. Today I take refuge, plug in a tiny space heater and cosy up to the surplus coats. It is a place of solitude for me, away from daily grim, the family and electronics (except for my trusty laptop, of course). It is the place I like to think and write. Since it is January, I am thinking about resolutions for the new year.

Many people avoid New Year's resolutions, claiming they don't work, so why bother? The project manager in me says of course they don't work if you haven't spent any time reflecting on what is important to you. It is not really different then in the business world when remarkably little time is spent considering project goals. Often a list of objectives is quickly scribbled down so the project manager can check that task off the list. The objectives may sound good (enough for the sponsoring organization to accept them), but they probably don't reflect business need and so, in the end, the project is not successful.

The thing about New…

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