PMO Proverbs: 25 proverbs inspired by a coral snake..!

Have you ever had a near death experience? Or, have you had a real good scare? Often, during or after such an event, your mind races around sometimes going down the path of flashbacks and other times recounting things, oddities, one after another and for no apparent reason. Well, not too long ago, I had such an experience. Not quite near death, but it was a very good scare. You see, I was minding my own business doing yard work when I noticed that there was a patch of crabgrass growing in my St. Augustine lawn. As a relatively new resident of Orlando, Florida, I am still learning how to maintain St. Augustine grass. I have learned quite a bit about bugs, diseases, and weeds that are common problems with the particular variant of St. Augustine grass that I have called Floratam. I also learned that Floratam got its name from Florida and Texas A&M, the Flor from Florida, and the TAM from Texas A&M, where this particular variety of St. Augustine was grass was developed and released in 1972 as a disease and bug resistant grass. But I have to tell you, when it comes to this grass, the terms disease resistant and bug resistant could not be better examples of what an oxymoron is.

But I am digressing; let me get back to the crabgrass. Here is the situation. I am working in the yard, I spot a patch of crabgrass in otherwise pristine St. Augustine lawn, and I decide to extricate this crabgrass manually, that is pull it out by hand, since it is too late in the year to treat it with any kind of weed killer. The patch is not that large, probably four feet by four feet at most. The crabgrass easily pulls out and in no time at all I have filled up a lawn trash bag with the stuff. And, as I am pulling the last little bit of this weed out of my lawn, I spot in the corner of my eye a cute little worm making its way for my hand. As I turn my head to get a better look, I noticed that this cute little colorful worm is actually quite long for a worm, about 12 to 15 inches. And then I further notice that this cute little guy is sporting red, yellow, and black bands.

Instinctively, at that moment, I jumped back and not a bit too soon as this little guy coiled and lunged in an effort to strike my hand. Staring down at this creature, the old cautionary and rhyming saying popped into my mind, “red touching black, a friend of Jack; red touching yellow, will kill a fellow.” For those of you who haven’t heard this saying, it is referring to the differences between the harmless and non-poisonous King Snake and the deadly and very venomous Coral Snake.

You see, both snakes are banded with Red, Yellow, and Black bands. But the order of the bands is different. The King Snake’s Red and Black bands touch, where as the Coral Snake’s Red and Yellow bands touch. And this little guy at my feet was indeed a snake, not a worm, and it’s red and yellow bands were adjacent to each other. Yes, it was a Coral Snake. Not big, in fact Coral Snakes, don’t get very big. But, the venom of the Coral Snake is neurotoxic. It paralyzes the nerves.  Often people pick up a Coral Snake because it is so small and pretty not realizing how dangerous and deadly this snake is. The Coral Snake hangs on while biting, more like chewing, and injects as much venom as possible.  There are a high percentage of fatalities from the bit of the Coral Snake.  Without immediate treatment, a snake bite victim will likely die. In our neighborhood, there are dozens of children at play. I can just imagine what would happen if one of the kids had happened upon this snake rather than me. Now, I truly love and respect nature and I normally don’t kill snakes, even poisonous ones, but for safety concerns I did kill and bury this Coral Snake right away. If this upsets you, I welcome your comments and suggestions for what else to do. In hindsight, I should have called our county animal control hot-line. I have come to learn that they can handle these matters.

In the aftermath of this near tragic event, I couldn’t get that old snake proverb out of my mind. “Red touching black, a friend of Jack; red touching yellow, will kill a fellow.” And this got me thinking about how useful proverbs, these short memorable sayings offering words of wisdom, can be in our daily lives. And, especially how such things as proverbs can be ever so relevant to the management of the PMO and the management of the projects of the PMO. The idea being, if you remember the proverb, you will remember how to apply the wisdom. So, inspired by that little Coral Snake are the following 25 proverbs for your PMO. 

1. Any task, no matter how complex, can be estimated accurately, once it's completed.
2. The most valuable, and least used, word in a project manager's vocabulary is "no".
3. Nothing is impossible for the person who doesn't have to do it.
4. You can bully a project manager into committing to an impossible project completion date, but you cannot bully him into meeting it.
5. Too few people on a project can't solve the problems - too many create more problems than they solve.
6. A change freeze is like the abominable snowman: it is a myth and would anyway melt when heat is applied.
7. A user will tell you anything you ask about, but nothing more.
8. A user is somebody who tells you what they really want the day you give them what they first asked for.
9. The conditions attached to a promise are forgotten, only the promise is remembered.
10. There's never enough time to do it right first time, but there's always enough time to go back and do it again.
11. I know that you believe that you understand what you think I said, but I am not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant.
12. The sooner you rush into coding, the later you finish the project.
13. If project scope is allowed to change freely, the rate of change will exceed the rate of progress.
14. Change is inevitable, except from vending machines.
15. The person who says it will take the longest and cost the most is the only one with a clue how to do the job.
16. The bitterness of poor product quality lingers long after the celebration of meeting the project date is forgotten.
17. A verbal contract isn't worth the paper it's written on.
18. What has not been put on paper has not been said.
19. If you fail to plan the project, you are planning to fail the project.
20. The more you plan the project, the luckier you get.
21. If you can keep your head while all about you are losing theirs, you haven't understood the project plan.
22. If you don't attack the project risks, the project risks will attack you.
23. A little bit of project risk management saves a lot of fan cleaning.  
24. The sooner you fall behind the project schedule, the more time you have to make it up.
25. When all's said and done, a lot more was said than was done.

There you have it, twenty-five proverbs inspired by a coral snake. If a few of these proverbs bring a smile to your face, that's great. If but one can be of help in some small way, then that's an added bonus.