Drunken Boxing for Project Managers
“The main feature of the drunkard boxing is to hide combative hits in drunkard-like, unsteady movements and actions so as to confuse the opponent. The secret of this style of boxing is maintaining a clear mind while giving a drunken appearance.”
Yeah... just like that… but with network diagrams and burndown charts… and a wee bit less vodka.
"This is war.
It is the most important skill in the nation.
It is the basis of life and death.
It is the philosophy of survival or destruction.
You must know it well." *
In Sun Tzu's world, war was a heavy thing. Brutal, costly, painful and only to be taken on when it was absolutely necessary.
And when it was necessary, the only way to set yourself up for success was to become a student of the thing you were about to spend people's lives on.
For those of us who manage IT Projects, this may seem a bit over the top if you try to apply it to your work, but when you come right down to it, it isn't that far off.
Each project we take on levies a heavy toll on us and the places we work. We burn money, people, reputations, good will and more often than not, our life outside of work.
We've all worked with the people who create projects just to seem busy, or create giant catastrophes just to save the day. More often than not, these people get sorted in the end, but the thing to keep in mind for each of us is, if you are going to take on a project, and burn through all those things that could be used on something else the company needs to stay afloat, or the time you need outside of work to be with your family, make sure you understand why you are doing it, what you are going to do, how you are going to succeed, and most of all, what you are going to do when you realize you got the first three questions wrong.
* The translation above is from Gary Gagliardi's book "Sun Tzu's The Art of War Plus Its Amazing Secrets". Of all the translations I own, there are only two that are so worn the pages are falling out. This is one of them.
I've been studying the Art of War and working on applying it to my day to day work as a Project Manager for almost 15 years now. While I've lectured on it and taught classes that covered the whole text, I've never detailed out my ideas on how each piece can be applied to the work of a project manager.
My goal here is to post a new entry every few days until I've worked through the entire book. I'll be referencing multiple translations and will give notes on each one in the entries.
As always, any comments or feedback would be greatly appreciated.
A few weeks ago the Project Shrink, Bas de Baar asked his readers what questions they would like answers to. His mailbox exploded. We salvaged what we could and did our best to provide some answers...
I've been told by a lot of folks that I should change the name of my blog. I may be weakening on that one, but I'm not totally ready to throw in the towel just yet. The assumption a lot of people make is that the title has to do with drinking or that it is some self-depreciating joke. Neither of which earn me much in the way or respect or credibility, but the fact is they have nothing to do with the title.
What I wanted to talk about when I started the blog was a style of project management that was a little more stealthy and subtle ... more under the radar than what most people employ. To me, the best project management happens when people don't realize it is going on. I also think that, a lot of the time, I can accomplish more as a PM by not acting like a PM because people feel more at ease, or less threatened, if they don't think you are there trying to control them, or check up on them.
So, I needed a name that fit with all that, and I apparently watched way too much Kung Fu Theater on Saturday afternoons growing up because the best fit I could think of was Drunken Boxing. I could give you my explanation of it, but since I don't practice any martial arts, I think I should leave it to those with more experience.
This clip is from an episode of Fight Science and it provides a much better explanation of Drunken Boxing that I ever could. While you watch, imagine applying the behaviors to managing people and work - that is the point of the title of this blog.
I am happy to report that the Project Shrink, Bas de Baar, (@Projectshrink) and I have posted Episode 3 of Project Potion - The New Team. This conversation focuses on the things we need to deal with when putting together a new team for a project.
