Project management for real people

Jory Des Jardins — Sun, 16 Sep 2007 14:31:42 -0500

Waaaaaaay back in the deep recesses of the Dot Com Bust, but before the company I had worked for had gone under, I was in a panic. I couldn't accept the cliff that I was approaching, much less the inevitable freefall that was to follow. I bought a pile of GMAT study guides and pored over them during my lunch hours. I hated math, but I figured that re-learning algebra was preferable to being unemployed without fallback. A business degree would be like a suit of armor that would protect me from the recessions that affected the less-marketable folk.

Problem was, I was miserable following this path. Granted, no one is herself in a market downturn, but for some reason the studying wasn't coming naturally. I realized that my consternation was from a deep-seated fear that I was wasting my time. But I was far too practical to not have a Plan B.

A friend suggested that I see her career coach. I didn't see the point; after all, I KNEW what I needed to do. I just needed to understand what was keeping me from getting the job done. I agreed to call her coach, with hesitation.

My first call with Kimberly Wiefling went differently than I had imagined it would.

"I'm going to ask you a series of questions," she said, "and I want you to answer them as honestly as you can."

My impulse was to think I was wasting my money. How would asking me questions provide me with that I didn't already know about myself? I was paying her to tell me what she thought about my situation.

That day I learned something new: Coaches aren't doctors; they don't prescribe. Rather they find the area of consternation and, with your awareness, help you to dissolve it. Kimberly didn't tell me what to do; she brought me closer to my own truth and equipped me with a game plan for my chosen path.

Kimberly used her science background to approach my situation, asking me "If/then" questions and extracting my rationale for how I was approaching my career. I learned that a key assumption behind everything I did was that I needed some form of credibility to enable me to do what I loved.

I had wanted an MBA, I told Kimberly, because I wanted to speak and inspire others; maybe even coach. But even with this revelation there was a hidden agenda. After an hour of questions we got down to a truth that I, a practical woman, didn't want to admit to herself. At the end of the day, I wanted to tell stories.

"And you need an MBA to do that?" Kimberly asked.

"People would listen to me if I had one," I said, hearing the absurdity in my statement.

With this new truth I couldn't move forward with business school. I wasn't sure what I should do and ended up taking several months to figure things out, but I knew that I needed to find more direct means of reaching my goals. And this required a new bravery, of learning to off-road. I wanted to go to business school because it was like a highway leading me in the direction I wanted, but until I was courageous enough to take the smaller routes--or even forge my own--I would never get to exactly where I wanted to go.

That session was very powerful. After that meeting I spoke with Kimberly occasionally, and subscribed to her outstanding newsletter. I felt I was cheating, gleaning her wisdom with no effort on my part. She was a natural writer, and funny to boot. In all of her missives she used a word to describe the ethic behind everything she believed--scrappy. This isn't a very glamorous word, but it applied to me, someone who busted her butt and was learning to work smarter and with more integrity. Of course, years later, I encouraged her to blog.

I met Kimberly when she was just starting to grow her practice, in 2001. Today, she's a full-time coach, speaker, and writer. She's the embodiment of someone who has forged a unique path. I read of her new courses and enterprises, including ongoing work in Japan, and felt a sort of kinship, as I was now rolling on my own path. When she sent me the galley for her new book--alas, part one of a new series called The Scrappy Guides!--I was excited. Finally Kimberly found some time to cull her wit and wisdom into a guide. I had to read it.

Kimberly's first book, Scrappy Project Management: The 12 Predictable and Avoidable Pitfalls that Every Project Faces comes at an interesting time for me. As BlogHer grows, so does its headcount. My usual mojo is Lone Ranger--let me handle it all! But now my projects go beyond what one woman can handle; I am my own bottleneck. I knew I needed good people--more qualified than myself--to get us to where we're heading. I was relieved for the help, but anxious as well. More people means more to manage.

I love Kimberly's approach to leadership--having one or few lead many is a recipe for failure. Rather, a leader has to encourage everyone to take a leadership role and cull those efforts. A leader is a project manager. And by removing the onus upon oneself as a leader to be the genesis of everything, you will get more done. This news was a relief.

Kimberly deftly uses metaphor for what I often call a "clusterf*&k" effect that often occurs with well-meaning but failed project management. She calls this "The Rip Tide Model of Project Teamwork":

With unclear goals, the speed of mistakes exceeds the speed of progress, and team members start to drift rather than paddle. Imagine yourself floating on a raft in the
middle of the Pacific Ocean on a dark, cloud-covered, moonless night. Having no idea of where you were, whether you were moving, or in which direction, why on earth would you bother to paddle?

Compare this to being on a speeding bullet train where the path and destination are clearly defined. Even if the track runs out a couple of kilometers down the line, a team that trusts their leader will fly down the tracks at full throttle, knowing that more track will be laid by the time they get there.

I've just started the book, but already I can relate. In my "Web 1.0 Days" projects were periods of time when everything in my life was moved over. I had no life, so this wasn't as difficult for me, but for folks with spouses, hobbies, and children, this is, indeed, a challenge. Not surprisingly, in a leadership workshop I attended, my work persona was given the name Mac Truck.

Kimberly writes:

In my younger days I focused entirely on results, with little regard for the impact of the process on myself or others. I worked myself into exhaustion, became even more irritable than normal, alienated potential allies, pushed people too hard, and said lots of stupid things that made me wish I had a rewind and erase button on my mouth. On one occasion I got into some quarrels with one of my guys. He was normally easy-going, so I asked him what was wrong. He said he was trying to quit smoking. My retort? “Quit after the project is over!” And when another talented engineer complained that the long hours were wrecking his relationship with his girlfriend I told him he could always find a new girlfriend after the project was finished.

Although somewhat funny at the time, I look back on my callousness with a degree of remorse. My own personal scorecard now includes building long-term relationships.

I, too, armpit-deep in the most challenging "project" of my career intend to manage with relationships intact. In my neverending quest to achieve results AND maintain sanity--and humanity--this book is like a beacon to me. I look forward to the next scrappy guide (Kimberly, a request: Make the next one Scrappy Time Management).

Jory Des Jardins also blogs at Pause.

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Project management for real people