Is the Project War Room Dead?

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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Topics: Communications Management, Knowledge Management, Lessons Learned

I have a feeling that I am going to come across as a grumpy old man in this article, wishing back for the “good old days” and bemoaning the fact that modern technology is ruining project management. Well, maybe I am…but this is my article, and I’m going to use it to moan and complain!

This month’s theme is visual project management, and while it may not be what the editor had in mind initially, it immediately made me think about some of the larger projects that I managed that had their own “image”. I guess they were a long time ago now, but we’re only going back to the ’90s here--maybe even early 2000s. These projects had a meeting room put aside for them that would have the Gantt chart around the wall, flip charts with contact information, in and out boards, and key milestones featured in a prominent way (and would likely also have empty pizza boxes and soda cans in the corner).

The projects managed in those rooms would have their own code name and logo that would be featured on every document, maybe even a project color scheme that would identify something as belonging to that particular project. All of this would help the team members feel as if they were part of some special club, an exclusive community that you were privileged to be a part of.

We don’t have that today--we have SharePoint sites, and…

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