As I sit here at the park with our two three-year-olds and our one-year-old baby I'm also enjoying the smell of freshly mown grass. That's a rare thing in Las Vegas because there isn't much grass. What grass we do have must be watered year round or it will die because it almost never rains. I'm getting off subject now, my apologies.

Back to the analogy. The smell of freshly cut grass is like newness and hope. New because it's fresh and hope because the messy long grass is gone and everything looks perfect and even and gives you that feeling that it will stay orderly.

Just as newly cut grass is fresh, each new project we are assigned is a new chance at perfection or at least extreme success. A fresh customer, a new set of requirements and the hope that they are complete and accurate, and a new team dynamic that is so far without conflict or disorganization.

New Projects

Of course, we wish we could keep that fresh spring or early summer feeling going forever in our projects, right? That early utopia type feeling that says I can do all things for all people and still have time to manage my other projects.

I'm not trying to burst anyone's bubble here, but the obvious reality is that into each project some strife will find its way. Things will not remain fresh and new. Requirements will be incomplete. The customer will be difficult to manage. Each new team you manage will present you with new challenges and sometimes you'll want to pull your hair out or scream at the top of your lungs. And sometimes that fresh new project you were handed will simply go nowhere and die a strange but swift death for reasons way beyond your control. All you can do is pickup your battered self and have renewed hope again for the next project and so on.