Page 137 - Straight Talk On Project Management IV

Use your life to beta test IT Project thought processes and methodologies

Have you ever thought about trying something new in
your delivery of IT Projects but eventually decided to
play safe?

It happens to us all, I guess. I mean keeping it fresh is
great but if you wreck your IT Project and at the post-
mortem, it's revealed that the project failed because
you tried something new ... well, who wants to run that
risk?

Wouldn't it be cool if there was a laboratory where you
could carry out experiments on these new ideas. A
place where you could test them out on low risk
'projects' before inflicting them on the high-risk major
IT Project that is at the centre of your organisation's
business strategy.

An IT Project Manager friend, Malcolm, has such a lab! This week he told me all about it.

"It's my life," he told me. "I 'beta test' any new ideas or methodologies in my daily, 'away from the
office' life and suss out what works."

I was intrigued. Malc told me more.

"I worked out about two years ago that I was subconsciously using my Project Management skills in
my daily life. From organising the family holiday to putting away the weekly shop, every task I was
undertaking at home borrowed from the techniques I'd developed delivering IT Projects ... and that
made me wonder. If the home life and work life tasks were so compatible that they could run on the
same 'thought software' could I not try out new ideas on those low-risk jobs?"

He's right. I have written many times about taking IT Project inspiration from the wider world but
I've never thought of using my home life or hobbies as a beta test lab!! I asked for a recent example
and Malc told me about his swimming.
Last year Malc noticed that the sedentary nature of Project Management was having an impact on
his waistline and so he signed up at the local pool.

"At first, I struggled to swim ten lengths," Malc told me, "It really hurt the morning after, even after
such a short swim! I almost didn't go back! I thought of how we incrementally build units of an IT
Project together to create a greater whole so thought I'd just try and swim twenty lengths next time.
Suddenly the first ten were easy as I was focussed on the bigger target. The time after I aimed for
forty lengths and now the first twenty were easy. I was interested in the psychology at play here.
How could something that seemed to be hard become easy just because you've set your target on
something even harder?!"

Malc figured it was a milestone thing. He was celebrating each of the extra ten lengths as individual
wins. This felt really good and pushed him onto the next level. That initial ten length swim had been
an arm aching, leg cramping ordeal, but the four ten length swims were four reasons to cheer
himself on to his target of forty.