Lessons from an Ironman Project

With unusual professional growth from blue-collar field technician to white-collar technologist, Bea has lost neither her roots in the field nor her respect for those who work there. Her experience has developed into an expertise in interfacing with field workers, and she focuses a lot of her efforts on designing tools (databases, spreadsheets, automated documents) with their needs in mind.

  Career Development   Leadership  

Earlier this month, in spite of some unbelievably ugly weather here in Houston, two of our company employees fought through the heat, hail, high winds and intense rainfall to claim the title that will forever belong to them: Ironman.

Alicia Scott is our human resources and payroll manager, and Branden McCormick is one of our project managers. For six months, they had been initiating, planning, executing and monitoring and controlling this project on a grand scale. And recently, they moved into the closing phase and accomplished—with a great deal of flourish—the final project requirements: They became Ironmen.

The Ironman Triathlon involves three separate races, run back-to-back without a break, and is considered one of the most difficult one-day sporting events in the world. The first race is a 2.4 mile (3.9 km) swim and has a mandatory cutoff time of 2 hours and 20 minutes. The second race is a 112 mile (180.3 km) bike ride with a cutoff time of 8 hours and 10 minutes. The third and final race is a 26.2 mile (42.2 km) full marathon with a cut-off time of 6 hours and 30 minutes. Any participant who manages to complete the event within these timings becomes an Ironman.

Neither one of these individuals is new to the world of project management as our company is, in many ways, a projectized organization. Our company actually thrives on project management …

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