The 25/8 Project Manager

My 16-year-old daughter came up with this one last night.  I was trying to think of a way to describe working ‘more’ than all the time.  Or more realistically, a way to describe constant availability with an exclamation point.  24/7 has been overused to the point that I think it’s lost some of its meaning.  At first, 24/7 availability meant something.  Everyone understood that it meant ‘all the time.’  It made you think.  Now, it really doesn’t.  I originally blurted out 34/7, for some strange reason, and she corrected me and said that 25/8 sounds better – it hits both the round the clock concept and the weeklong concept at the same time.  She’s right.

So my question – are you a 25/8 project manager? And my next question – is that a good thing or a bad thing? Let me touch on this from my own personal experience and perspective….

Working from home and primarily remotely for several years now affords me some freedom to work when I want to and when I have to.  I’ve gone to Disneyland without taking any vacation. How?  I work wirelessly on the road using my phone as a mobile hotspot while someone else drives. I stay in the room at the beginning of the day and get calls and work done and join my family later on.  I once successfully delivered a $165,000 deliverable – which was a huge project milestone – to the client while working from the business office of the Disneyland Inn.

I have my phone with me that has all my email and messaging on it so I’m always, always available. But I also know when to expect contacts and what to expect through experience so we can all still enjoy ourselves.  I also can and do work late at night on many occasions. The same goes for when we aren’t on a trip.  I can produce a very up to date and accurate project schedule and status report using the latest team updates and produce the information at 2am, send it out via email and everyone has it at 8am the next day when they’re ready for it.  And my information is 10 hours fresher than if I had used a typical 4pm time as my cutoff for information going into my project schedule and status report.

So, am I a 25/8 project manager? Most definitely, yes I am. I work in the Pacific time zone, lead projects for customers on the east coast and make myself available for conference calls sometimes at 8am their time – meaning 5am my time. (Yes, I try to steer clear of those for the obvious sanity and sleep deprivation reasons, but it is sometimes unavoidable.)