Page 74 - Straight Talk On Project Management IV

Improve 1% And Develop GOOD habits. New Year, New IT Project Manager

You - Part 3

How are those New Year Resolutions holding up? After
conversations with IT Project Management colleagues,
friends, clients and acquaintances, it seems that there
are some broad themes in the areas we have identified
for improvement this year.

That’s what this series of five posts is all about.
The first was all about managing with meaning and
purpose, the second was about confirmation bias – how
and why to avoid it, and this third instalment is all about
habits and how just improving by 1% can make a HUGE
difference.

Habits

A Project Manager friend, Malc, often says, “Methodology, resources and all the mechanics of an IT
project matter but nothing makes or breaks an IT Project like our habits.”

He’s right, isn’t he? The outcome you get is a sum of the things that you do and this applies to
everything from losing weight, becoming fit, getting more sleep and … managing IT Projects. If you
are seeking to get eight hours sleep a night but your habit is to not hit the sack until midnight when
you’re up at six the next day, the outcome of those habits will be that you fail! At work, if you aim to
eliminate scope creep but your habit is to accommodate every stakeholder request – guess what!?

Liverpool 2-0 Man UTD

Liverpool football manager Jurgen Klopp, after his team’s win over Manchester United this weekend
told the BBC, “The result is the result of the performance.”
It sounds like such an obvious thing to say and yet the genius of this lies in its simplicity. As he went
on to say, “The performance was 100% a performance with which we should win this game today
because we were the clear better side for 75 minutes.”

What Klopp means is that the way the team showed up, because of their habits during those 75
minutes, they deserved to win. Liverpool had 53% of the possession, took 16 shots of which five
were on target, and earned 11 corners – United had 47% of the possession, took nine shots of which
four were on target, and earned five corners. Just looking at these stats, a record of their habits, you
could guess which team went on to win.

Celebrate your success
When IT Projects succeed, it is also down to the way you and your team shows up. I don’t think that
we give ourselves enough credit when an IT Project triumphs – it’s because of you and your habits!