Enlightenment – The project’s over, now I get it!

 

Has this ever happened to you?  Say you’ve been assigned a project in a subject matter with which you are not familiar.  You listen to your SMEs in meetings, take diligent notes, and quietly pull a SME aside and ask the questions you were afraid to ask after the meetings.  You read whatever documentation exists, which is often scattered bits and pieces of the subject matter like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle.  There are so many pieces missing, and no majority of pieces that you can cobble together to see what the end product looks like.  Surely you threw away the puzzle box!  Well, your core duties are scope, schedule and budget, so you show your true colors as a project manager and focus on that.

Fast forward to the end of the project, and through the trials and tribulations of scope changes, technical issues, requirements clarifications and testing, something magical happens.  You go back to your original notes and whatever had been documented, and surprisingly, it all makes sense now!  You understand the decisions made, any documented debate that lead to the decisions, and past e-mail threads that advocated the decision.  Is it just the passage of time that suddenly gains you this wisdom?  Did you undertake some sort of “practicum” in the subject matter of the project?  Did you undergo what felt like a full blown “night school” effort to learn the subject matter after hours?

Likely not.  Sub-consciously the vocabulary and concepts collect in our brains just by managing the project day in and day out.  Much like a new job in a new industry, “something” makes you much more competent 9 months after working in that industry – “something” for which you could have never prepared without immersing yourself in it by working in that field.  Just by being “present” to the project – attending meetings, actively listening to the resources, handling their issues, clearing their barriers – you pick up a vernacular.  Additionally, by doing your core function as a project manager – capturing tasks, vetting the plan, validating assumptions and documenting next steps – you can’t help but absorb the lexicon of your project’s subject.  Should we call this “osmosis”?  Yes, but for us project managers, who hold ourselves accountable to the results of the project, osmosis not only happens but is accelerated in that we actively listen for risks and clarity on next actions to keep the progress.  This responsibility forces us to learn the subject matter of the project.  There is no way around it.  One of my favorite quotes is “90% of life is showing up.”, by Woody Allen.  By accepting a project and doing the usual blocking-and-tackling, you’ll be surprised how much you’ll feel like a subject matter expert at project’s end.