One Small Instance of Project Management Philanthropy

 

When I saw December’s theme I was instantly reminded of my Management Information Systems professor from graduate business school. One of the exercises he passed out to the groups in the class had to do with scheduling a series of activities – about twenty-four of them – into a network. The activities’ durations and logic were included, so it was just a matter of placing them into a structure, conducting a forward pass and a backward pass, finding the critical path and calculating float. Since I was, at the time, a project controls analyst, this exercise was right up my alley (or so I thought). My boss at the time even got involved, and loaded the exercise’s parameters into a CPM software package to confirm my manually-derived answers.

On the day that I was to present my group’s results to the rest of the class, I was very confident, and even more so as the first group to present findings had the exact same answers that I had. But, as this first group was wrapping up, the MIS professor pointed out that the “document software” activity had been scheduled to be completed prior to the testing of the software itself (the project being scheduled was to develop a computer program), and was, therefore, mis-scheduled. That team’s presenter argued in vain that the problem’s stated parameters had been correctly integrated into their solution – this professor insisted that the team should have recognized the invalid parameter. Then it was my turn.

In presenting the set of answers that I knew this instructor was going to find unacceptable, I had but one, desperate ploy: I maintained that the CASE tool our project team was using included a self-documentation feature, meaning that the activity to develop the documentation was properly placed prior to the testing activity. He didn’t buy it, and I ended up receiving one of my very few Bs in graduate school (for those of you who didn’t attend graduate school, an A is an A, a B is really the equivalent of a C, and a C is pretty much an F).

Flash forward two years. I had achieved my Project Management Professional (PMP®) certification from PMI® at a time when that certification was a real bear to acquire. It involved taking eight 50-minute exams, with an hour for lunch, making it an all-day affair. You had to pass at least six of the exams to qualify to re-take the two you flunked, and around half of the test-takers failed to do even that. After receiving my PMP®, I became more involved in my local PMI® chapter, and arranged to proctor the next PMP® certification exam session. It was to be held on a Saturday, and the Wednesday prior I received the exams, blank answer sheets, instructions, and list of test-takers. These last two were of particular interest: my instructions were very clear that absolutely no student was to be admitted into the examination room late, and the list of test takers included my old MIS professor.

Sure enough, on Saturday everyone on the list except for my old professor was on-site, and in my employer’s conference room at 7:55 a.m.  At precisely 8:00 I read them their instructions, informed them that the clock was running, and went upstairs to lock the front door. I locked the door and headed back to the conference room. Just as I was re-entering the conference room, I heard agitated knocking at the front door. I looked at my watch: 8:05 a.m. I returned to the front door, which had clear glass panels on it, and there he was. I don’t know if he recognized me, but I, of course, recognized him. And I had a dilemma on my hands.

If I let him in, it would be in clear violation of my instructions from PMI®. I might also be adding a distraction to the people who were already in the room, pencils out, answering questions. And, if this guy could not find such an easy address as my employer’s at a time certain for something that was supposedly this important, did he deserve to be a PMP®? On the other hand, if I simply left him on the outside with little more than a gesture of pointing at my watch and mouthing the words “sorry, you’re too late,” could I feel confident going forward that I had not done so out of a desire for vengeance over his sloppily-evaluated class problem? I pretty much knew how he would have responded had our situations been reversed, when the appropriate evaluation question popped into my head: How would I want or expect him to respond if I were the one on the other side of that door?

I turned the deadbolt and let him in. He was effusive with his thanks, pouring out one lame excuse after the other for being late as he hurried into the exam room. I have no idea if he passed the minimum six, or if he attained his PMP®, much less did anything with it. In fact, I don’t even know if my true motivations here were philanthropic, or if I just wimped out on an opportunity to inflict a dose of well-deserved comeuppance.

But I do know this: looking back, I’m glad I made the decision I made.