“Preparing shock, move away from the
patient! “
What the? The sound was muffled by the
partially closed door to my office. I shoved open the door of my office to see
what was going on. And promptly wished I was still in the quarterly business
review being grilled by the CFO.
A massive gorilla was kneeling in the
center of my office. His massive torso obscured my view of what was beyond him
and only made me more concerned as all I could see were a pair of human legs
that I assumed were connected to a body lying on the floor.
“Shock will be delivered in 3, 2,…”
“Hogarth!”
I rushed into the room, trying to see who my personal gorilla was leaning over.
My mind praying it wasn’t Bob as he still owed me the initial set of product
owner user stories to start release planning. In retrospect, not the most
compassionate thought, but it was the heat of the moment. \
“Shock
delivered, it is now safe to touch the patient.”
I cleared
Hogarth to look down on his victim. Only to find the empty eyes of a CPR dummy
staring up at me. A portable AED was
lying next to the dummy, it's cables snaking out to the test pads stuck on the
dummy's chest.
“Hogarth!,
what are you doing?” You’d think I’d get tired of asking this, given how often
I find myself asking it in any given week.
Looking
unnaturally large as he hovered over the mannequin Hogarth pointed at the
device. "Practicing," he said matter of factly. "Don't you
remember the CERT
training is coming up? I want to be ready when we go."
"Hogarth, I'm not signing up for the Community
Emergency Response Team." I stepped over the CPR dummy and made my way to
my desk.
"Really?" Hogarth said. "I would have
thought you would have jumped at the chance. You're always advocating people do
more. You know responsible authority and all?"
I sighed.
"Yes, I do believe in stepping up, but that's different. I’ve got nothing to offer for CERT. I’m just
a software project manager. I don’t have any medical training, I don’t know
jack about construction and if you hadn’t noticed I’m far from what you'd call
a Greek god of fitness. I'm anything but fire fighter material."
Hogarth settled back on his haunches. One long arm
snaked out to my bedraggled fichus and came back with a branch. "Uh
huh," he mumbled through a mouthful of leaves. "Let me ask you this,
when you are brought in to help on a problem project, what do you do?"
I didn't have a clue where Hogarth was going with
this. I did know that this was familiar ground for me. "Easy, start by
gathering data, figure out what's gone wrong, create an "state of the
project", create a plan of action to correct, execute and then keep going
back through the cycle in a tight iteration loop until the project is on track
or done."
Hogarth nodded. "Interesting. Sounds a lot like
this." He handed me a printed PowerPoint slide that bore the title
"CERT Sizeup."
More than a little annoyed at this delay, to my
getting real work done, I skimmed my eyes over the slide. I blinked. I read the
slide more closely, taking in each of the nine steps a CERT team goes through
when assessing an emergency scene. "Oh… my… That's"
Hogarth nodded, "Just like project
management?"
I really hate it when he's right.
Project Management is Leadership and Leadership is
needed
In many ways this
blog ties back to the Responsible
Authority Gorilla. No matter our
authority, we have a responsibility to the project. Combine this with the
ethics taught by professional certifications like the PMP and I argue this
responsibility extends to helping those around us, with the skills we have
developed.
That's all well and good, but
project management isn't exactly a life saving skill?
Really? Take a look
at the slide Hogarth showed me. It is from the national Community Emergency
Response Team training for sizing up an emergency site.
Looks familiar,
doesn't it? The process a CERT member goes through, to assess and deal with an
emergency situation, is a lot like what we project managers go through when
dealing with a project. I've seen lighter weight process frameworks than the
CERT checklist. When you start learning about the Incident Command
System, a national standard framework for how multi-agency and jurisdiction
response to a disaster is handled, then you really see how our training, as
project leaders, can be an asset to our community.
I'm currently taking
CERT from my local city. This free training is offered by many communities to
create a core of citizen volunteers that can help out in the event of disasters
or major emergencies. When fire and medical is overwhelmed, CERT teams are become
the "First Responders" and can often make a difference between life
and death. Most of my fellow class mates are taking the class as a response to
the "Glenview incident", what most of the world calls the San Bruno Gas
Pipeline explosion. I, on the hand, am continuing a long tradition of
community service.
I first learned CPR
and First Aid in college as part of the Resident Assistant program for my dorm.
I eventually ended up as the ERT Captain for one of my former companies, over
seeing a team for a 1500 person campus. In the course of that time I've contributed
to saving at least two lives and preventing several more people from having
more serious injuries had I not been a first responder while the fully trained
medical people were still in transit.
I'm no hero. I
believe in helping others and I've learned that the skills I use to manage
troubled projects are just as effective in managing the response to a disaster
or medical emergency.
Good project
management can change the world. Even if it is just one band aid at a time.
Joel
Bancroft-Connors
The Gorilla Talker
Want me to talk to
your gorilla? Send me an email,
jbancroftconnors@gmail.com
You can follow me on
twitter, @JBC_PMP
Who is Hogarth? Read
Blog 001 to find out all about my personal gorilla.
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