Gorilla Flight 030 now departing...

"Arrgh! I already told you, he's no longer with the company!"

Bob's blood pressure had to be rising. Yes, his door was open, but I was also six cubes down the hall and could hear every word he said easily. He was talking on the phone, so I had to imagine what the other side was saying, but I could imagine.

"Look, I was his manager, I just want his laptop for a couple of hours so we can get some files off it. What? Yeah, fine, send me the paperwork and I'll sign it, just get me the laptop."

Tully had been a junior product manager, working for Bob. He'd been with us for about a year and he'd done such an amazing job that he'd been given the entire GARGAMEL product. And then MacroServe had recruited him away to work on their new game system. It was a dream job, dream pay and he'd jumped.

Only problem was he'd jumped only a week after giving notice and just before Bob left on a week trip to Asia. Tully handed his laptop off to IT and turned his badge over to the department admin on his last day. Bob had been chasing IT for the last week, to try and get Tully's computer and all the files related to GARGAMEL.

Two hours later, Gus, the IT guy, walked by towards Bob's office a laptop under his arm. Lumbering in his wake, Hogarth sidled into my cube. Plopping into the spare chair he grinned around a mouthful of banana.  "This is going to be good."

I raised my eyebrows to my gorilla. "What do you mean?"

"Wait for it…"

Two minutes later Gus walked back, headed for the basement lair of all things IT. I turned and looked at Hogarth, raising my eyebrow again. Peaking over the cover of "How to win friends and influence people" he said "Wait for it…"

A minute later I heard a strangled cry from Bob's office. This was followed by the most forceful phone dialing I've ever heard.

"Yes, this is Bob. Yeah, I got the laptop. NOW WHAT'S THE BLOODY PASSWORD!"

Hogarth set Carnagie's book down. "Ah Tully, the grass was so green he didn't stop to smell the roses of departure."

I think the scariest thing about Hogarth's words were that I understood what he meant completely.

Transition Planning, are you ready?

With the economy on the recovery we are not just seeing the jobless rate slowly creep down. We are also seeing the jobful starting to stick their heads up from their cubes and wonder if there might be a better cube out there. So say you have done that and the company down the road has offered you this really great cube. They really like you, they really want you to join their team and they made it worth your while.

So the question is, what about your current job?

"What do you mean whatta about my current job? I haven't had a raise in four years! After surviving four layoffs I'm doing the work of six and there isn't any sign the bosses want to hire again. Even if we have made huge profits the last two quarters."

Ah, yes. There can be any number of reasons why you have no regrets on leaving your current employer. Or you could even not want to leave, but this new job is the perfect career move or will mean you can start paying down your debt. The question is, what will you do in the time between your resignation and the last day?

If you follow Hogarth's advice, you're going to be a very busy person. Manager-Tools did a three podcast series on "How to resign" (link is to the first cast). In this cast Mark and Mike outline twelve steps to resigning. Some of these only apply if you have direct reports, a large chunk have to do with you personally. As project managers (or any effective individual contributor) the key points are:

‐ Prepare a Key Project Report – Transition File*

What is the current status of any projects you are working on? Where are all the documents located? Who is responsible for what?

This isn't a one page document, this is the keys to all your projects. Any files related to these projects should be put on a repository that can be accessed by multiple people.  With storage technology so compact, I'd also recommend putting your projects on a flash drive (A 4GB USB Thumb Drive is less than $15). You can hand that over to your boss an ensure the files will passed on.

Include the plans for the next three months. You're the project manager so not just your plans but the project plans. People need to know not just where the project has been, but where is it supposed to go.

‐ Prepare instructions for your absence*

This is for everything else you do. Go look at your calendar and your to do list (for the next three months). What things are you doing? What department activities are you responsible for. Are you the only person who knows how to generate evaluation licenses for beta? Make sure you document them. Better yet, get someone identified and train them.

*- Credit where credit is due: These steps direct from the MT podcast. Descriptions are my own paraphrase of their advice, but is directly based on MT content.

You don't do all this because you are required to do it, I've never known a company that has requirements for an outgoing employee. You do this because it is the professional thing to do. It is the right thing to do. I won't trot out the ethics conversation in detail, but Project Mangers live and breath by our professionalism. The joke used to be "Silicon Valley is a small place". I updated that joke recently to say "Silicon Valley is a small place and it spans the whole globe." Don't burn your bridges, they can't easily be rebuilt.  And if you build a few bridges on your way out, all the better.

Two weeks is not enough:

So Hogarth's example is on the dramatic side. Tully gave only a weeks notice and his boss was out of town for most of that time. Everyone generally accepts that two weeks is the "professional" thing to do. Long before I ever listened to Manager Tools (who also recommend four weeks), I didn't agree with this. Sure, if you work at MacDonalds then two weeks is probably just fine. However, If you are in any kind of management job or major individual contributor role, then two weeks just isn't enough time. Four weeks gives you enough time to train a replacement, to update any documents that need updating, to ensure smooth transitions with time for questions. Four weeks is professional (there I go again).

"But my new company wants me to start right away."

Of course they want you to. But do they really need you to? If the answer is yes, then that's a whole other series of red flags. Any company that is so demanding that you start "right away" may be hiding some big issues under that job offer. The company that wants you to start "next week" probably is hoping you'll fix them right away. Go read the "90 day gorilla" for why that's just bad.

Tell your new company you want to be professional and give enough time to transition your duties. Nine times out of ten you'll have just been moved up a notch in their eyes. "This guy is a pro, we made the right decision."

Always one to practice what I preach, let me share with you my own experience. In one of my prior company's I did an almost five week transition. When I sat down with my boss, she was surprised but also very happy with my offer to stay that long and ensure a good transition. The interesting reaction came from people all over the company, as I informed them or the word of my departure spread. I got more than one question along the lines of "Why are you staying so long?" or statements like "I'd be out of here so fast, you'd see a cloud of dust." Three weeks later I got a different reaction. More than one manager/director level person pulled me aside and thanked me for one of the most professional transitions they'd ever seen. They appreciated the transitions I'd did with their teams, the time I'd taken to make myself available and my positive attitude.

And my new company was more than happy to let me have that time. I had more than one positive comment on how long my transition was. I very much had the impression that I'd created a good impression because of the time I dedicated to the company I was leaving. "If he puts that kind of effort into a place he's leaving, what will he do here?"

Be prepared: The Boy Scout motto is a very excellent tale of advisory caution to this advice. When you do resign, be prepared for that day to be your very last day. Though I believe it is much rarer now, some companies have been known to take the attitude that someone who resigns is a danger or threat. This can range from "He'll steal all our company secrets," to "If he sticks around, he'll encourage others to leave."

Because of this, ask yourself if you are prepared to walk from your bosses office straight to your car? Have you prepared your departure packet? Can they take your files and at least understand them and carry forward with them? Or is everything locked inside your PC, that IT will confiscate and your boss won't be able to get the files off of even after a month of asking?

Many years back, I worked in technical support. It was a great team and the manager was a great guy. I gave the normal two weeks notice and told him I'd work full tilt right up to the last day. He was very appreciative, but turns out the decision wasn't his. The "company" was worried about turn over in the group I was in and decided it was better to minimize my exposure to others. I'd resigned at 9:00 am. At 2:00 pm I was walking out the front door, a box of effects and a check for the next two weeks time. They would have rather paid me two weeks severance than have me around the other tech support reps.

In the end, you have to live with yourself. Did you give the job everything you could? Did you do what was right? Amazing how ethics and conscience are so inexorably tied together.

Joel Bancroft-Connors

The Gorilla Project Manager

Want me to talk to your gorilla? Send me an email

You can follow me on twitter, @JBC_PMP

Who is Hogarth? Read Blog 001 to find out all about my personal gorilla.

When do you add your project manager?

This is really about project management, trust me.

"The client is screaming bloody murder." Bob was sincerely agitated. Not his normal "we have a million dollar deal on the table" passion, but honest to goodness agitation, beads of sweat and all. "They rolled out the portal in their China office and all hell's broken loose. They ordered their long lead time parts to arrive on March 11th. When the parts didn't arrive, they called their supplier who happily informed them the parts would be delivered on November 3rd, just as ordered."

Across the table, Jake nodded sagely. "Well that makes perfect sense. "

I'm pretty sure normal human beings can't do what Bob did with his eyes right then. "Makes sense? They are going to be late delivering their Nonesense Tablet by six weeks and you're telling me it makes sense?"

Jake leaned back in his seat. I can't swear to it, but I think he was enjoying this. "Well yeah, the portal is a US only design. China uses Day, Month, Year date format. Here in the States we use Month, Day, Year. So when we write March 11th as 03-11, someone in China thinks you just wrote November 3rd." Jake then leaned forward  looking at Bob, "We raised this back during the planning phase of the project, remember?"

Well I didn't remember, but I hadn't been put on the project until a week after the plan of record. Bob's face showed no small amount of confusion as well. Jake, sensing the confusion explained.

"When the portal was defined, it was clearly stated as being a US only product. It isn't currently programmed to support other countries. That doesn't just mean the words are in English. The entire system is. Date formats, number formats, post code formats, UI sized for English only and so on."

Bob let his head fall forward, only barely catching them in his palms. "Okay, so its 'As Designed.' How long will it take to make a Chinese interface?"

"I'd say about six months."

"SIX MONTHS?" Bob nearly hit the roof, his eyes doing that very unnatural bugging out again. "I just want a Chinese interface, get the someone who speaks Chinese to sit down with the UI designer. It shouldn't take more than a week!"

Jake shook his head. "It's not that simple. We didn't code the product to be internationalized. Remember you had us remove that work from the project, so you could save time?"

"That was two weeks!"

Jake nodded, "It was. And if we'd done the work then. It would have only taken two weeks. Trying to fix it now means we have to rip everything apart. Think of it like a big truck trailer. The box you want is all the way at the front of the trailer. We have to pull out everything else to get to it."

Bob dropped his head into his hands again. He began to quietly sob "six months… six months… six…"

Hogarth dropped himself into the seat next to me, casting a sympathetic glance at Bob. "You know, internationalization is a lot like project management?"

I turned to look at my gorilla, "Come again?"

Hogarth grinned, "Yeah, think about it. If you wait until a project is in trouble, or even just in development, before you assign a project manager, you're already fighting an uphill battle. Look even bigger than that. How many start ups never make that jump from start up to sustained business because the structure they built as a start up isn't sustainable? By the time they realize they need to change, it's too late."

When is too late?

Making sure you can internationalize your software is a classic example of planning ahead to save yourself a lot of re-work down the road. If you don't make your code double byte compliant, you can end up having to re-architect from the ground on up. What could be a little extra work, during development, can require a complete disassembly of the car, just to put a missing screw into the middle of the engine.  Remember how big an issue it was to fix all those Y2K computers that had two digit years and needed four digit years? Same concept.

I18N also gives us a great example of "how hard can it be?" Making your software work in another country can be a very complicated and convoluted process (Check out the scope section of the Wikipedia entry on I18N). It is easy to just brush it off as changing the language on the screen, when in reality making your product work in another country can be an entire product of its own.

So as Hogarth has said, "internationalization is a lot like project management." And that begs the vital question of "when do you bring a project manager in?"

The PMBoK asserts it should be in the project initiation phase. Reality, however, can be a lot different. This is one of those times when I unequivocally side with the PMBoK.

Most of us are probably familiar with the statement "no, we're not ready for that yet," or "I think it's too early to worry about that."  Have you heard the line "This project's just started development, we're assigning you to be the project manager?" Or when you inquire about a new project did you hear "Oh it's way to early to get project management involved. We are just hashing out ideas?"

There is a measurable part of society that sees project management as little more than a schedule tracker and meeting holder. This perception places project managers in a non-essential role. If you have one, that's great. But if you don't, just have the development manager, civil engineer, etc. do it in his spare time. It's an add on, not a full time job.

Not everyone sees it that way, and the last ten years have seen this belief drop off considerably. However, that does not make it all a bed of roses. Even when project management is seen as a vital function of a project, the question of "when" remains a troubling little conundrum.

Most start ups don't have dedicated project managers. The general style of a start up calls for jack of all trade employees that can do many different jobs. Particularly in software  you hear things like "we're moving to fast," or "we need to be super flexible right now." At some point a successful start up has to cross the chasm from start up to predictable business. Smart start ups hire a project manager at this point. They recognize things are changing and they make an effort to take control of that change. I've seen far more start ups that don't. It is not until deliverables start dropping left and right, commitments are not made and half the company doesn't know what the other half is doing, that they bring in a project manager. By this point, things are so bad that PM is going to spend most of his time in fire fighting mode, fixing the problem of the hour and not making sure the company can execute the entire project.

Similar things happen in many big companies. A product has been fully mapped out, resources assigned, a schedule created (usually based on the desire for a ship date, not realistic estimates), before a project manager is assigned to "manage" the project. The poor PM isn't managing the project, he's one step ahead of the avalanche trying to steer it away from the sleepy alpine village.

Great organizations recognize that figuring our how to do things right, to start with, can save much more time in the long run. The "myth" that one hour of planning can save eight hours of work, has been proven true time and again. Great organizations recognize that you should get the experts on running a project involved from the get go. Project management reaches all the way back into even the wild idea stage. Whether you call it project management, program management or portfolio management, having someone who understands how to get a project from A to Z involved from the start can help to expose issues early and ensure everything that is needed is ready, when it is needed.

In a recent project I served as facilitator to the product management and product architects. The product wasn't even an official project yet, but they knew that in order to be approved as a official project, they needed to treat it like it was real. The output from that meeting went on to become the official specifications for the product. I've also worked in a company where I sat in the strategic roadmap meetings. These meetings would be planning out releases that were no more than ideas on PowerPoint slide.

What's the magic bullet to convince a manager, organization, company that they need project/program resources from the beginning? Unfortunately, like so much of project management, there is no silver bullet. I've used the internationalization example to good effect. Another that works well in, concert with Agile, is the GPS example, "Do you turn your GPS on when you start driving or when you think you should be there?" I've tackled this subject, from other angles, in my "Gorilla with too many hats" and "Project Managers are SMEs" blogs.

As always, relationships matter a lot. You can't force process or a project manager down someone's throat. But develop a good relationship, and like Archimedes and his lever, you can move the world. The biggest thing we can all do, is be successful in early project engagements. Industries learn, and if enough projects are improved through early project management involvement, then that it will become more common.

You might not always be able to get in on the ground floor of a project (or start up), but at the very least you can be aware of the additional pitfalls you're going to be facing.

Joel Bancroft-Connors

Veteran, the project management wars

Want me to talk to your gorilla? Send me an email

You can follow me on twitter, @JBC_PMP

Who is Hogarth? Read Blog 001 to find out all about my personal gorilla.

Book Review- 7 Habits

The mountain of books threatened to collapse the desk. Cubicle desks were just not designed to support the weight of so many books. Though I suppose the gorilla was the real issue.

"Hagarth?" I didn't really need to finish the question, he knew what I was about to say.

"I'm sharpening the saw," he said, not looking up from a book titled "The inter-dynamics of banana diplomacy when used in a corporate environment."

"You're what?"

He laid the book down and looked at me. "Oh forgive me. Here, let me move these books. How are you doing, you kind of look stressed?"

Hogarth was already bustling away to clean my cubicle as he asked the question. Without really any conscious thought I responded, telling him about the frustrating meeting I'd just gotten out of.

"You sound frustrated."

"Yes I am." I said reflexively. In my head I was thinking another thing all together. 'Wait a minute, I just said that…'

"I can imagine, I'd hate to do that kind of work and have it ignored."

Who was this and what had he done to my gorilla? "Hogarth what's going on, why are you being so nice?"

"What, we can't both get what we want. It's not okay for us to have a win/win situation?"

"Hogarth, have you been reading Covey again?"

The 7 Habits of highly effective people, by Stephen R. Covey.

I have owned 7 Habits for at least ten years. In all that time I don't think I ever made it past the introduction. It took Audible.com for me to finally take the time to listen to this book on being effective (No, the irony of my total ineffectiveness in reading a book I already owned is not lost on me. ).

I purchased the unabridged audio book, in all its twelve hours and fifty eight minutes of glory. As I listened to Mr. Covey read his own words, I repeatedly chastised myself for taking so long to do so. While the book and Mr. Covey's exact words were new to me, so much of the 7 Habits resonates with my own personal philosophies and project management styles.

Mr. Covey read the book personally and I think this added a lot more to the book. So many of the stories are directly personal that for someone else to read it, the book would lose a lot of credibility.  And Mr. Covey's personal anecdotes are a vital part of the success of this book. This isn't just some self-help theory being preached by a consultant. The 7 habits are something developed through Mr. Covey's personal life experiences. The sheer power of example on perspective is strong all by itself. Having the man who personally witnessed the events tell the story makes for an impact you just can't measure.

The seven habits themselves are not something profound or earth shattering. Instead, I would place them into the pantheon of common sense. And we all know how much we humans manage to use common sense. His concept of task management (Part of Habit 3: Put First Things First) makes complete sense and is so easily put into practice. I had a business colleague complain about how his team was constantly behind the eight ball and they just couldn't get far enough ahead of the fires to plan. He'd never read 7 Habits, but I described Mr. Covey's two by two Importance/Urgency matrix to him in a couple of paragraph email. A month later he told me they'd been using this for task prioritization and it had done wonders. By taking a little time, they'd discovered a lot of the fires were urgent, but not important.

The book is a dense read (or listen) to get through. It's not the kind of book you polish off on an airplane ride. There is so much data and thought provoking stories that you have to set the book aside to process it all (or turn off the recording in my case).  It is the kind of book that you should finish. There were a couple of times where I had the urge to push it to the side (Heck, I didn't read the print copy for ten years). The urge was driven completely by my own discomfort in facing my own decisions and how I'd approached problems in the past.

My largest regret with this book is I didn't read it ten years ago. This book may be twenty-two years old, but the words are still as relevant today as the day Mr. Covey first wrote them down.

Where does it go on my "Book Shelf Index"? The print copy is on an upper shelf in my home office. I won't be reaching for it every day, but that more has to do with my having copied the 7 habits down and putting them in my computer where I can reference them daily. Buy the book and the audio, this is a book worth hearing read by Covey and having for reference.

Joel Bancroft-Connors

Veteran, the project management wars

Want me to talk to your gorilla? Send me an email

You can follow me on twitter, @JBC_PMP

Who is Hogarth? Read Blog 001 to find out all about my personal gorilla.

A Project Manager's Poker hand

Or- Ripped from Today's headlines; PMP certification and $4 will buy you a cup of coffee!

It was late evening at my office. I was still there to take a conference call with one of our Chinese out source firms. I strode purposefully down the hallway and straight into the conference room.

I stopped short. I backed up and looked at the name of the conference room. Yes, I was in the right place. Stepping back in my mind tried to make sense of the scene before me. Hogarth was sitting at the table, his back to me. He had garters around his forearms and wore a visor. He was rapidly dealing cards around the table to the other occupants of the room.

Two more gorillas, a black swan and a pink elephant.

The sheer absurdity of the scene froze me to inaction for several moments.

"All right, everyone ante up out," Hogarth called out.

"ITIL," mumbled the larger of the two gorillas.

"Six Sigma, Black Belt," the pink elephant said..

Slapping a chit on the table, the other gorilla declared "Prince2."

Quietly sliding her chit across the table, the black swan almost whispered "MCSE.l

"PMP," Hogarth said.

Everyone at the table picked up their cards and carefully began arranging them. Moments later Hogarth called out, "Opening bet is to you, Winston."

"I call two years of team leadership," the larger gorilla said.

The "betting" went around the table. "Award winning writing"," Paid to speak in public", "Risk management expertise…"

"HOGARTH!" My mind finally caught up with the absurdity. "What are you doing?"

My gorilla turned to look at me. "Oh, hi boss. Just playing poker with some of the guys." He pointed around the table. "I told you 'bout my cousin, Winston. The elephant is Percy, from accounting, that's Wendy's Gorilla, Stanley and birdie over there is Wanda from IT."

"Poker? What on earth are you using for money?" For some reason my mind had no problems with three gorillas, a pink elephant and a black swan playing poker. Instead I was trying to wrap my mind around just what they were playing for.

"Job experience and accomplishments!" He declared.

"What?"

Hogarth grinned ,"Haven't you heard the news? A PMP certification and $4 will get you a cup of coffee?"

Certification Poker, just what does a PMP get you?

A while back Simon Cleveland, of the Miami  Project Examiner, posted a blog titled "Why is just having a PMP not enough." In his blog he reviewed a study published in the Project Management Journal. The study surveyed Senior IT Executives and found that a PMP certification rated at the bottom of the list for considering a candidate for hiring.

The bottom?...

Yes, the bottom. Here is the list from Simon's blog:

1. Leadership = 94%

2. Ability to communicate at multiple levels = 93%

3. Verbal skills = 87.2%

4. Written skills = 87.1%

5. Attitude = 85%

6. Ability to deal with ambiguity and change = 82%

7. Work history = 68%

8. Experience = 67%

9. Ability to escalate = 66%

10. Cultural fit = 57%

11. Technical expertise = 46%

12. Education = 37%

13. Length of prior engagements = 23%

14. Past team size = 18%

15. PMP certification = 15%

Wow... My first reading of the article had me up in arms. I was ready to storm the walls and take no prisoners. How dare they say my PMP was the bottom of the list! Then I read a LinkedIn discussion on the matter. In that discussion, one person voiced confusion on why the PMP is considered a must have in so many job requisitions and with HR. Another poster wondered how this jived with PMI promoting project management as a "certified" profession, like accounting or lawyers.  I was ready to call the million PM march on Washington (okay maybe the century PM march, do I hear a dozen?).

So I read Simon's article again. This time I took my time. I paid attention to the listed values and the LinkedIn concerns from my fellow project managers. When I was done, I had learned two valuable things. The first is the old Netiquette adage to never immediately respond to a confrontational email or post. Write your post, then walk away for thirty minutes or more. Come back after you've calmed down and see if you still want to send it. You almost never will.

Of course that's not what this blog is about. The "Aha Moment" for me came when I realized that the study was 100% absolutely right!

"Say that again? "

That's right. I agree that a PMP should be at the bottom of the list for deciding if you want to hire someone. We saw Hogarth use his PMP (well technically mine) to ante up in his job experience poker game. He didn't use it for an actual bet. The PMP got him in to the game, but it wouldn't win him his hand.

It's the same for a hiring decision. A PMP certification is not the most important decision in hiring someone, and it should not be. The same goes for pretty much any other professional certification, Prince2, Scrum Master, PMIs new Agile cert ( You need a Medical Degree to be a doctor, that doesn't mean you are a good doctor.). A certification helps get you in the door. It's a must have on your resume and, in theory, is proof that you have the skills that the hiring manager wants. It is your ante to get into the interview game. It gets you to the table. Then you have to prove that your certification was justly earned, by demonstrating your ability in the skills. In the case of the PMP one of those key skills is the ability to communicate.

Three of the top four things on the study's list are about communication. Eighty percent or more of being a Project Manager is about communication. Then, looking at the top of the list, the number one thing IT Execs look for is leadership. It's not communication, though a good leader must be a good communicator. That said, I would argue that to be a successful Project Manager you must be a strong leader. If you can successfully lead a project team, without direct report authority, then you are probably a good leader.

Let's look at two more high ranking traits; handle ambiguity and change 82% and ability to escalate 66%. These are both vital tools in a good project manager's tool box. A dedicated PMP certified project manager should have these skills and actively cultivates them. I'd also argue that the ability to escalate is just another part of communication.

Conversely, notice where Technical Expertise rates? A whopping 46%. Leadership, communication, and adaptability (ambiguity and change) far outweigh the requirement for technical expertise.

So on reflection I think this article is spot on and fully supports who I am, as a project manager.

My PMP certification gets me to the table. It shows I want to be one of the best. I still have to prove to them that I am.

Joel Bancroft-Connors

Veteran, the project management wars

Want me to talk to your gorilla? Send me an email

You can follow me on twitter, @JBC_PMP

Who is Hogarth? Read Blog 001 to find out all about my personal gorilla.

Book Review- The Lazy Project Manager

The Time: 7:15PM, The Location: My office

"Hogarth!"

My gorilla looked over the top of the Wall Street Journal. He was leaned back in my chair, his size twenties on my desk. "Yes?"

"What are you doing?"

"I'm reading the paper and being lazy, you should try it."

I stalked into my office, waving a stack of papers in front of me. "I don't have time to be lazy! There's a dozen things that need to get done, right now. I have to have this report posted tonight and I'm three days late updating the matrix of gear ratio changes. I'll be here until at least ten. Now for Pete's sake get out of my chair!"

Hogarth carefully folded his newspaper. Placing it in his lap, he slide his feet off my desk. Fixing me with his big, black eyes he said "Let me ask you something. No matter how hard you've worked, have you ever been able to get everything you are supposed to do done?"

"Well no, but…"

Hogarth held up a big paw-hand, "Atch, atch, atch, no buts. This report, say you get it out. Will anyone read it between now and tomorrow afternoon when they come to the program team meeting?"

"Wel no…"

"And the updated matrix of gear ratio changes, how many people have downloaded the last version from the SharePoint."

I reached past him and brought up the SharePoint metrics screen on my computer, "Umm two!"

Hogarth nodded, "One would be you, when you downloaded it to update it. And the other one was me, I needed something to put me to sleep last night." Hogarth leaned back, tossing his feet back up onto my desk. Flipping open the paper he said, "No matter how hard you work, there will always be more. Are you working on the right things?"

It was then I noticed his prehensile toes were holding something. It was a book, I could just make out the title, if I turned my head just right…

The Lazy Project Manager - by Peter Taylor

I first learned of the Lazy PM through Cornelius Fitchner's podcast series. If the father of PM Podcasts thinks it's worth bringing a writer on his cast, then it usually is worth learning more about that author. 

So when Peter Taylor had a special sale, I snapped up an autographed copy.

The cover shows the silhouette of a suited man, casually seated in a large comfy chair. The author recommends just this approach for reading the book, and for how a project manager should approach his job. I was flying coach, so the chair wasn't all that comfy but I was able to finish his book in one cross country flight.  Regular readers will recall my words from my Potato, Pahtato blog and how I described studying for the PMP has learning a common language for what I already knew. Reading Taylor's book was much the same experience.

As I flew through the pages I found myself nodding along and making the logic jumps with him. Peter's book is all about being Effective with your time, making sure you focus on what is critical and not the things no one is going to care about. And he's not just spouting platitudes and personal bias. He starts the book with the powerful Pareto Principle (using a wonderful Monty Python dinosaur reference to do so). Anyone who's studied for the PMP certification, has had to commit this principle to memory and you can't help but quickly realize Taylor is a smart veteran who's seen enough of the project management wars to know the science of project management and the art of how to apply it.

Taylor's book isn't going to give you the secrets of the perfect status report, or the keys to unlock the mastery of the Gant chart. He even goes to great lengths to make it very clear this book is NOT a PM training book. You won't be able to pass the PMP by reading the Lazy PM. But like the kindly old Sergeant, who teaches the wet behind the ears Lieutenant about leading men, Taylor's book is like a virtual coach (his own words) on how to be good at one of the most important parts of being a good project manager. The people part.

Using a combination of real world stories, great two by two charts, a Monty Python-grade dry wit and practical explanations, Peter Taylor walks you through the stages of a project lifecycle and what you, the project manager, need to focus for each stage of your project.

Where does it go on my "Book Shelf Index"? Right now the Lazy PM is one of the half dozen books on my office quick reference book shelf. Not so much because I reach for it often, like I do with Elements of Scrum or the PMBOK, but more so because the picture on the cover reminds me to stick to my own Gorilla PM philosophies, focusing on what's important and not burning out trying to do everything.

Buy the Lazy PM and let Taylor prove to you that working until midnight isn't effective, it's plain silly.

Joel BC

Veteran, the project management wars

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Who is Hogarth? Read Blog 001 to find out all about my personal gorilla.