The Euphoria of Project Success

 

There’s always this expectation in my head that I will have always have enough time to go through entire project management plans and documents again; especially when the project execution experienced little to zero hick ups, and flowed smoothly through initiation to its closing.

These kinds of projects make you want to scour through lessons learned in repeat; because you relish each and every feeling, every epiphany, every thought, imagined planning process that led to an eventual reality being accomplished, brought out of the confines of the mind, as the fetus of an idea eventually transformed into a tangible goal. Meeting every requirement the customers asked for and completing the project, under budget and on schedule. What other braingasms exist for a project manager?

Remember the nights, when you came home late, and papers were strewn across the drawing room floor, as you tried to manually decompose activities and assign resources while creating a WBS? You had figured out that computer software would not cut it this time. So you had taken to printing Gantt charts and organograms and using your ink as well as your mind and grey matter. Coffee was now your best friend. It made you gain a certain type of razor sharp focus, and you could gain about 10 extra minutes of work every 1 or 2 hours.This was priceless. The joy euphoria of revisiting these, may make you forget that you have these other colleagues, who have been working on similar projects, and maybe discovered even better, faster, smarter ways to do solve problems. This will not phase you though.

You are master of this craft. Alpha PM. Your team was excellent that last time. This method should pull through again, even when issues show up, if given a little more tweaking here and there.

Thanks to new open source software, Microsoft project and android and apple apps, things are becoming a lot more easier. So you click in. Its another world. You have to input loads of data. WPI's for WPD's. Your process becomes even more seamless and very elaborated. Its beautifully worked out. Risks are calculated. Estimates to complete are given in record time. You are emboldened to face your project sponsors, when you present project status reports. You present them with no conflict of choice, just the best way to get the job done in record time. Back in the days, it was mostly about putting the paper to the pen and making a couple of lists. Things are getting better. We can now fit these entire lists in the small devices that fit in our palm, and get the work out, done. A matter of permutations and algorithms.

Have you ever wondered what the future of our project documents and archives would be? I bet not that much. One may reasonably argue that we have come so far, technologically speaking, that the archiving of our digital libraries cannot get any better. With limitless access to an almost infinite resource of bibliography, comes conflict. The conflict of choice, again. You can only choose one method at a time. Thank God for meetings and brainstorming sessions. These paid off their weight in gold. Hold on, do these tools and techniques literally weigh anything anymore?

These can be done digitally these days. Whatsapp, Facebook and Instagram groups to the rescue. The project team can easily be grouped into a master mind. Feedback is shared and the best decisions are opted for by general consensus Right there on the dial. You are becoming a better project manager, using modern technology to open up channels in communication.

See the wonder of technology combined with a community of knowledge? It’s almost like magic on steroids. The churning out of ideas that become theory, which are finally baselined after they had been taken apart and reinforced by a collective agreement. As a project leader, I like to buy into my team members feedback. I encourage the team with assurances. I like to allow individuals work freely from a point of relaxation, because I have realized that it's the most natural everyday ideas that bring about the best results. In every mind, there is at least an atom of creativity. This creativity flourishes when individuals are in a comfort zone, to air opinions.

A cocoon, in which an idea may breed and fester, and die a natural death, is what the mind is, until you let out the idea, then it may take wings like a butterfly. I remind them of this weekly. You must unreel your message, like a movie director. Tell it. They may never have been expressed in the form that they take when you do. Your manner of utterance is unparalleled. Unique you. The way you say it, how you tell it, your articulation. Your mode of assertion. Throw in time and place, and them your colleagues. We are here to help with streamlining the idea.

Also consider this, interpretation of your very idea or story may change every now and then, progressive elaboration. Lets stay agile. Let us be very careful not to gold plate the scope. Lets be true to this. I think to myself, is there really time to go back to the past documents?

This another project. Not the same goals. I just want the thrill of the success of accomplishment. We shall consider every aspect that constitutes to our desired goal. We shall work as a team. We shall brave the storm, form alliances, normalize these ups and downs and we shall outperform expectations. Eventually, we shall pop some champagne as we celebrate success, at the close of project.