Project Management in Real Life

We need Project Managers that leads by example and jumps in to help any project team member when they are in need of help. I do not like the term "Servant Leader", it sounds like it came out of the 1700's.

Project Managers need to get their hands dirty too. Don't just direct and watch the action sipping your cup of coffee. Involvement with your team to make adjustments to keep the project moving is important. Be there for your team. If there is a task you can do, then do it.

A good example of a Project Manager getting their hands dirty was a Data Center inventory project that I was involved in. I was the Systems Administrator assigned to inventory every piece of hardware / software in the Data Center. The Project Manager got on his hands and knees in the Data Center to help me take inventory and create the Data Center floor plan.

I have gotten my hands thirty on many of my own projects looking underneath the Data Center tile floor to plan hardware projects. 

Just get your hands dirty. It's a rewarding experience when you can help out. There is soap and water to clean your dirty hands when you are done.

Leadership with no borders sounds better than Servant Leadership.

Today's Project Manager is faced with many challenges to deliver projects on time within the budget. They need to work smart with so much responsibility on their shoulders. Do they have time to get involved in continuous improvement? Yes.

The open minded Project Manager can use Kaizen to bring additional value to Project Management. What is Kaizen? It is a Japanese word. KAI = CHANGE and ZEN = GOOD, so Kaizen =  continuous improvement. Never be satisfied with a process or procedure. Always be on the lookout for opportunities to make improvements, whether it's a suggestions for the organization or the way you manage your projects. Make changes with an incremental approach to gradually yield results immediately rather than going for it all at one time. Just keep your goals on the radar and be patient while you work towards the goals. Quality outcomes is the reward.

Goals have been achieved, but we are never done with continuous improvement. There is always opportunities to make something better. Never be satisfied, always be hungry to make something better one day at a time. Project Managers get a good view of what is going on in the organization, so they need to speak up when they see something that could be improved and they also need to keep tuning their tools of the trade to operate efficiently.

The brand you create will define your style of Project Management. You need to leave a mark on your projects. Stand out from the vanilla Project Managers.

My Project Manager brand is called "Bring it on".

Transparency and Clarity with a Bag of tricks to meet all the challenges is how I run my projects so "Bring it on".

• Run a transparent project. Be prepared all the time to provide stakeholders the status of the projects. Always be the open Project Manager. Give the good and bad news.

• Run your project with clarity. Define the deliverables making it crystal clear with your stakeholders what is being delivered. 

• The bag of tricks is a metaphor for the tools, frameworks, methodologies, and approaches that will be used to run the projects. Have many options to make that project work. Go Hybrid or Hybrid-Plus. It's all about reaching into that bag and selecting the appropriate tricks to make the project a success.