The Project Shrink

Card number 5 in my series of 16 Project World Collectable Cards is titled "Map of You". Remember, I am creating the most awesome poster that ever existed about projects.

This card is about how what you do today relates to your personal journey.

The Map of You

Why are you actually working on this project? How did you end up here? What do you add to the team? Any clue on why you were selected?

When the project is finished, what do you want to add to your resume? What additional skills have you required? What do you want your LinkedIn referrals say about you? How are you changed when the project is finished? What is the legacy you want to leave behind?

I talk a lot about a project being a Big Adventure, or a journey. A project is also a small episode in the personal journey of many individuals. Viewing what you do today in the context of a larger path will help you explore your relationship with the current project. Why do you do what you do? Why do you want to do things in the first place?

Sharing your personal journey also addresses your relationship with your team members. They know a little more about your background. They see how you add to the diversity of the group. And it makes us all look more human."

Check out the previous cards:

1. Mostly Harmless

2. The Fellowship

3. The Red Convertible

4. Are we there yet?

This is how the cards fit together:

Bas de Baar is a writer who draws about people in transition. He loves to make visual maps and travel guides for the collaborators of our brave new world.

Card number 4 in my series of 16 Project World Collectable Cards is titled "Are We There Yet?" Remember, I am creating the most awesome poster that ever existed about projects.

This card is about one of the essential project conversations: How do you know you are on the right track?

Lessons From Oz About Stakeholder Management

The Yellow Brick Road

"When I was a kid my family drove every summer from The Netherlands down to the south of France. I loved those three day road trips. Navigation systems didn’t exist back then (yes, I am that old) so my father had written down detailed instructions on how to find our way to the Cote d’Azur.    

The drill went like this. He had written down checkpoints we should cross. Like a crossroad, a town, or a specific highway. I would set in the back of the car, leaned forward between the front seats and looking for the next checkpoint. Seeing a checkpoint made me happy. Waiting for one made me anxious. Looking at an expected crossroad provided the confirmation that we were heading in the right direction for our summer holiday."

Check out the previous cards:

1. Mostly Harmless

2. The Fellowship

3. The Red Convertible

This is how the cards fit together:

Bas de Baar is a writer who draws about people in transition. He loves to make visual maps and travel guides for the collaborators of our brave new world.

I am creating the most awesome poster that ever existed about projects. I started to make cards about different things you do in projects. There will be a total of 16 that together will make an incredible poster. You know, to put something on your wall. To have something to talk about.

Yes. I am very humble about it :)

This card is called "The Red Convertible". And it's the breakdown in the middle of a project.

Can A Project Have A Mid Life Crisis?

"I think a project can have a "red convertible" moment. It's that breakdown, or more that revelation, in which you remember why you were doing something in the first place.

Lets say your company needs a new service for a new market. People are all excited. A project is launched to make it happen. The excitement carries the team to great heights. It's a little chaotic, but it appears progress is being made. We don't like chaos. We need structure. So along the ride discussions emerge on how to structure this darn thing. Procedures are created. Some people take Prince 2 classes. Templates are created. And methodological debates are replacing discussions about content. The "abstract how" is overtaking the "specific why".

Before you know it, project life consists of rituals around time sheets and progress reports, approval procedures and the need for more certified team members. If a project runs long enough and isolated enough, the mechanism is overtaking the context. When you ask a team what they think is your risk, and they reply back with 4 templates for risk assessment. That's loosing context over mechanism.

Then a transistion occurs. Something triggers the revelation that this can go on for ever without result. And time is short. The project team has to "go back" to the start of the project to remember the original context, the why are we doing what we are doing, and integrate that somehow in there current mechanistic approach in the project.

This transition is the "red convertible" moment." 

Check out the previous cards:

1. Mostly Harmless

2. The Fellowship

This is how the cards fit together:

Bas de Baar is a writer who draws about people in transition. He loves to make visual maps and travel guides for the collaborators of our brave new world.

Last week I posted the first collectable card of a series I'm creating in the next couple of months. All the cards together will make up a map of "project world". Something you can put on your wall. To discuss things.

This card is called "The Fellowship" and it is about getting the crew together. It's about the A-team, MacGyver or the crew from The Italian Mob. Two stories about teams. Or just one man.

A-Team vs McGyver

"Hannibal said they only worked with the best people. And they always needed a helicopter, cars, welding equipment and machine guns that never shoot anyone. They could handle every situation. As long as they could weld old cars into tanks and fly away in the helicopter. “The A-Team is adaptable.”, Hannibal told me, “You just need the best people. And make sure you have set up the environment in such a way we can do our best work.”

His first estimate for the fee was a couple of million dollars. Having no funds or authority what so ever I asked him what I could get for hundred bucks. He suggested I talked to MacGyver.

MacGyver just has his Swiss army knife. His solutions are not sophisticated as those of the A-Team. But they seem to work. And he is cheap."

The Story about Handsome Rob

"This is a story about Handsome Rob. He is not only good looking, but he is also a great get-away-car driver. If you are planning a heist and need to get away quick, Rob is your man.

In the 2003 film “The Italian Job” Rob is played by actor Jason Statham. Handsome Rob loves the thrill and especially the life style that the he can afford thanks to the robberies he participates in. But he really wants to buy an outrageous, expensive and rare car. Rob has the reputation and the ambition to be part of a robbery in Venice. Hence the title of the movie.

That is a job you cannot do alone. You need a team. Left Ear is an explosives expert, Lyle is a computer nerd, Stella is a safe cracking expert and Charlie Croker is the man with the plan.

A lot goes wrong. I mean a lot. But they have to fill an entire movie. But, as any great motion picture, they conquer all the obstacles in their quest because of all the different skills and personalities in the team."

Bas de Baar is a writer who draws about people in transition. He loves to make visual maps and travel guides for the collaborators of our brave new world.

Wouldn't it be nice to have something on your wall that provides you an overview of how to do projects? I know I would like that.

Wouldn't it be nice to collect cards that you can combine to make a big map of "project world"? I definitely know I would like that!

So here's your first card. Mostly Harmless. And it's based upon something I wrote a couple of years ago... I hope you like it. :)

"When you conduct a project within a larger organization, an intervention, you might feel like an explorer at first. You arrive with your temporary tribe in a foreign culture. On an adventure. With maps and stuff.

What do you do?

Like the famous explorers from the old days, you can follow two strategies on arrival.

Arrive with a bang. Bring your own culture and let it shine. Brightly. And loud. Plant your own freak flag for all to see and scream your own tune from the top of your longs. This might appear hostile. Or not. It will be different for sure.

Or.

Stay low profile and try to adopt the culture of the Natives, the original inhabitants of the host organization. Be harmless. Or at least, appear harmless. Mostly harmless. And take things from there.

Plant your own flag or mix with the natives?

Now, I would start mixing with the natives first. They know the territory. They know the environment. And although you might think that you are there because the natives are too stupid to do the tasks themselves, you might want to check that first. Check that before you arrive in your big parade and get rolled in tar and feathers.

There is a huge difference between arriving on the scene  all-knowing and arriving slightly clumsy. Seem a little off-beat and charmingly clumsy makes you appear harmless. Again. Mostly harmless. You mix with the locals, but might have a small version of your freak flag pinned onto your suit."

Bas de Baar is a writer who draws about people in transition. He loves to make visual maps and travel guides for the collaborators of our brave new world.