It’s hard to tell a project manager that not everything that comes their way is a project.  When I first started using Project Workbench – a few years before I started using MS Project – I took a copy home and tried to figure out a way to use it for tasks around the house.  My wife nearly killed me so that experiment was short-lived, thankfully.  But still, my brain was working that way which is the point I’m trying to get across.

 

 

 

 

I’ve since come to the realization that not everything is a project.  I don’t mean that for everyday life – that’s obvious.  But what I’m referring to is the work that we do as PMs, the customers we work with, the tasks that we lead.  Not all of them are typical projects needing project schedules, status reports, budget management, etc.  Some just need leadership and management.  Since it’s all I have experience with, I’ll examine a couple of examples from my career that were large undertakings that I was in charge of, but that didn’t really need detailed schedules and status reporting and detailed resource loading and management.

 

 

 

 

Government Program

 

 

 

 

My first experience with project management was actually more like program management leading significant portions of long-term government contracts processing student financial aid records.  These contracts were 3 to 5 years long worth $30-50 million.  They weren’t typical projects – they were on-going production processing, customer support and occasional contract modifications.  It was really only the contract modifications that involved some of the regular tasks that I would call part of normal project management.  These were the portions of the project/program that would necessitate creating a project plan and managing resources and tasks.

 

 

 

 

Everything else on the program was management of on-going production processing, customer service activities, configuration management and change control, and financial management of the all of the billing and costs.  None of these activities fit well into any type of project management activities – aside from providing the government with formal weekly status reports and leading face to face quarterly project reviews, there really no other needs for regular project management activities.

 

 

 

 

Business Unit Sell-Off

 

 

 

 

While working for a major aviation and engineering firm I was asked to lead a project that involved transferring all documents, records, test info and drawings to an external organization that had purchased an internal business unit.

 

 

 

 

Leading this activity required that I gain knowledge of the business unit that was being sold so I understood what records and information could potentially be transferred.  It also required that I meet extensively with the purchasing company so I understood what records and information they were expecting.  The plan was to only transfer what was necessary – what the purchasing company was interested in.  But I needed to know what they could potentially be requesting. 

 

 

 

 

Actually, I entered this process well after it originally started.  At the point I came on board, the purchasing company was withholding nearly $250k from the purchase till they obtained all of the materials they thought they were due.  It was my job to make them happy and get that money from them.  By engaging the purchasing organization and thoroughly understanding their needs, I was able to extract exactly what their needs were and then mobilize teams internally in my organization to get that data, records, etc. for them as quickly as possible. 

 

 

 

 

This engagement ended well, but the nature of the activities and the work that needed to be done did not necessitate the creation of project schedules and status reports.  It was too chaotic because the information coming from the purchasing organization was sketchy – mostly because they really didn’t know or understand what they wanted – which is why making them happy enough to pay was not an easy task.

 

 

 

 

Summary

 

 

 

 

These two scenarios were both large efforts worth significant amounts of money.  However, in my best professional opinion they were not set up in such a way to lend themselves well to regular project management practices.  What they required was good investigation, excellent communication and customer management, and solid leadership.  Most things we encounter as PMs will require the regular tools of the trade – but I’ve learned that not everything is a project.