Here's a guest post from an aspiring young project manager, Stephen Robin, pictured below, who describes himself this way:
I am an inquisitive youth with an open mind, spontaneous brain, and an inexhaustible number of interests career and non-career related. My willingness to learn and a love of researching has formed me into an extremely curious individual that asks a lot of questions and has sparked the flame in me to discover new knowledge, experiences, places, and the like. As a lifelong learner, my interests will likely broaden in the future. Due to that, I have a huge appreciation for total person development(Holistic) and I have no intentions of slowing down. Currently, I am in my fourth year of college in which I am pursuing a Bachelor's Degree in Project Management. From my perspective, this degree is simply a running start in my career which aligns with my goal of reaching the highest level in the professional domain. With this in mind, the plan of action is to have a heavy devotion to, education, experience, and exposure where I can become an agent of change through Project Management.”
Project Management in the Animal Kingdom: Key Lessons – and Questions
We think of projects as a uniquely human thing - conceptualized (only) out of the human mind. Before it was discussed, before it came to paper, before it became a reality, any project was simply a thought. An idea. A concept. Project management, which brings those ideas to reality, is widely recognized as a practice unique to human beings, to us Homo Sapiens. Before the formation of recognized bodies or any project management intuition, before the rise of the project manager, its practice even early in human history, (whether or not it was called project management) provided lasting results we can see today The Great Pyramids, the Great Wall of China, and many others revealed that project management has been practiced since ancient times. Project management is intrinsically part of our being due to the need to create, deliver, and drive change according to our circumstances, needs, and wants.
Now, for this next part, I want you to keep an open mind. What if I told you that project management isn’t uniquely our domain and we aren’t the only practitioners in existence? Something that has been around since the beginning of mankind, is the reality of Mother Nature. Nature is home to its unique form of project managers. What I can only describe as “natural project managers” that do not follow a preset methodology, tool, or technique -non-sapient beings that were not trained, coached or enrolled in a program to acquire knowledge and gain experience. The non-sapient beings of the animal kingdom have their own form of project management; the art and science of “Instinct Project Management” or “Instinctual Project Management”. The practice of project management does not require a highly developed brain, extremely complex thought, or certifications of any kind.
Moreover, concepts that many project managers deem essential in any project are absent in the animal kingdom. For example:
A project charter
Work Breakdown Structure
Project Scope Statement
Product Scope Statement
..any sort of project documentation
Therefore you may ask, out of the many examples you may come up with in your head of projects done by the millions of species out there, which are the most mind-blowing? The projects – or at least project outcomes – below, belong to nature’s Project Management Hall of Fame:
Puffer Fish Circle- To create the patterns, the males swim along the seafloor and flap their fins. Such movements lead to the creation of beautiful circular patterns. Although the fish are only about five inches long, the formations they make measure about 7-feet in diameter. Once the patterns are made, females come to inspect them. If they are fond of the creations, they reproduce with the male that created the pattern. It is yet to be discovered what exactly the females look for in patterns or what traits they find desirable in the formation.
Below is a clip from BBC Earth that shows the project execution and outcome.
Gossamer Trees- In 2010 in Pakistan, unprecedented monsoons brought down massive rainfall. The rainfall was slow to recede and it created vast pools of stagnant water across the countryside. This led to a mass migration of spiders and insects to climb on trees forrefuge and cover them inthe cocoon of their webs. Although the cocoons led to the death of many trees, blocking sunlight from reaching the leaves, they also seemed to help trap more mosquitoes in the region, thereby reducing the risk of malaria.
Posted by Richard Maltzman on: March 04, 2023 11:41 AM | Permalink