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For those of you who are contemplating getting into the columnist/blogger business, I have a little bit of advice. Writers who address consistent themes – Project Management, for example – will often start out writing pieces while being motivated by the desire to communicate something. Whether because they have come across some valuable insight that they’ve never encountered in the literature previously, or are grappling with a blatant example of business model pathologies interfering in the way things “ought” to be run, or even for pure catharsis, entry-level technical authors will often write as if they need to get something off of their chests. It’s not necessarily a bad thing, but the more seasoned writers are usually motivated by something else.
It’s All In The Motive
That something else is a sense of what their target audience wants to read. Back in 1997, when I first started writing my column for PMNetwork, the Variance Threshold, I began by poking fun at accountants and protestors, people who often made the typical PM’s job more difficult. I had never seen an article or column in a PM trade journal that dared to satirize these professions, and thought it was long overdue. Based on reader response, I was correct.
Meanwhile, Back In 19th Century Italy…
Vilfredo Pareto (1848 – 1923), the great Italian engineer and philosopher, is famous for the “80-20 rule,” or the principle that 80% of observable results tend to be attributable to 20% of causal agents (e.g., 80% of the foot traffic in your house tends to be on just 20% of the carpeted area; 80% of a company’s revenue will often be from just 20% of its customers). But he also theorized that people tend to arrive at their conclusions and beliefs through emotional or prejudicial means, and then, only later, assemble the verifiable facts that support these conclusions in order to give the semblance of having arrived at their beliefs logically.
Okay, my readers may well be asking, all this about writer epiphanies and Italian philosophers is very (yawn) interesting. What does it have to do with Project Management? Well, I’ll tell you.
Why Is Your PMO Here?
Rookie Project Managers can be under the delusion that they’ve been hired for their level of expertise, gained through education, certifications, or experience (what there is of it). This is not so. PMs are hired to deliver a specific scope on-time, on-budget. Your education, certifications, and experience are only signals to your employer that you have a better chance of delivering than candidate PMs who do not have such things, or at least these things in the quantity or quality you have. To be blunt, you are not being paid for your opinions per se; you are being paid to deliver your project on-time, on-budget. If you fail in this regard, having the most erudite opinions, articulated at John Milton-levels of fluency, and including quotes from Vilfredo Pareto, will mean exactly nothing. Conversely, if you do consistently deliver projects on-time, on-budget, then you could have no notion of who John Milton or Vilfredo Pareto were, spend a significant amount of time quoting Homer Simpson (“D’oh! D’oh!”) and you will be hailed as a managerial genius. It’s just the way our PM world works in the free, competitive marketplace.
It’s Your Motivation, Writ Large
Which brings us back to my previous two blogs, about fake experts and setting up your PMO. PMO directors are not paid to remind everyone else in the organization what a swell idea PM is, and how everyone needs to do it. Rather, PMOs exist in order to supply PMs with the information streams that provide timely, accurate, and (most importantly) relevant information they need in order to make informed decisions that lead to delivering their projects on-time, on-budget. It’s not about what you want to impart – it’s all about what your customers want to hear. Besides, what you want to impart may very well be based on your feelings, or prejudices. Indeed, I would go so far as to say that those PMOs that indulge in eat-your-peas-style hectoring about the need to engage in certain irrelevant or marginally informative processes and practices will usually fail, while those who enthusiastically pursue the mission of providing timely, accurate, and relevant information in the most economic way available will dramatically increase their PMO’s chances of success.
Don’t take it personally – I’m sure people’s opinions matter a great deal to others in a wide variety of venues. It’s just that Project Management isn’t one of them.
Posted on: January 16, 2017 09:59 PM |
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