Article Overview
In our daily lives, we constantly undertake numerous private ventures and are faced with different life events.
As project managers, professionals who manage all kinds of complex endeavors in the corporate environment for living, should we be dealing with these events the same way we manage projects at work?
See what’s our expert's view on these interesting topics and share your opinion.
Table of Contents
Steve and I have been writing together for a time now, and have had discussions on a range of project management topics. Here is one where we may disagree a bit. Let’s see. My wife is always telling me, “you can’t run everything as a project.” I believe you can and with some degree of success. So, here are mine and Jon’s thoughts on the subject.
PMI defines a project as, “A temporary endeavor undertaken to create a unique product or service.”
Vacation:
A vacation is a unique and temporary trip that has a start and a finish with a set budget. While one may go on vacation every year or maybe a couple of times per year, each vacation is unique and separate from the others. The vacation start time (launch) is often very specific, and costly to change. Canceling airline tickets and hotel reservations can be painful.
The scope is to get your family from home to a destination, maybe a few, and back in a set amount of time and budget. Some of the Key Performance Indicators are: Safely, efficient, on or under budget, everyone has a great time, and home in the given amount of time.
What are the assumptions?
- Leave on time and return on time
- All will go smoothly
- Enough cash to cover everything
- Everyone will stay healthy
What are some of the risk areas?
- Car breakdown
- Airline late
- Weather changes
- Injuries
- Pet(s) – if you are a pet owner
- Cashflow
So, if you are a project manager like me, you have spreadsheets (cashflow), hotels info, maps, and airline schedules laid out on your desk at home. Sounds like my office desk – not those items, but slightly different documents.
This is an example: I use vacation planning to demonstrate project management application when I speak or guest lecture at universities or colleges on the topic of project management. For example, you want to go to Hawaii but only have enough money to make it to the nearest lake.
The home remodeling project, for a construction PM, is close to everyday work. It brings in one decision that a vacation does not, that is Self or Hire. There may also be some flexibility in the start date and the accomplishment date, though negotiating with family members on this topic might be as challenging as any external customer.
A home remodel is a unique and temporary product that has a start and a finish with a set budget.
Stakeholders – Family, Bank, Neighbors, and Suppliers
The scope is to remodel some area of your home in a set amount of time and budget. Some of the Key Performance Indicators are: Safely, efficient, on or under budget, and in the given amount of time.
What are the assumptions?
- Start on time
- All will go smoothly
- Enough cash to cover everything
- Everyone will stay healthy
What are some of the risk areas?
- Cost/ Bank involvement
- Cashflow
- Material availability
- Weather changes
- Injuries
As you begin defining the deliverables, the Self or Hire decision looms large.
- Do I have the skills?
- Do I have the tools?
- Will I have the time?
- Is it wiser to hire a contractor?
Lose Weight:
Losing weight is a unique and temporary (may happen several times in one’s life) endeavor that has a start and a finish with a set budget, not always but should. For example, we may become a member of one of those meal programs or up our expenditure on the gym.
The scope is to lose 30 pounds in a set amount of time and budget. Some of the Key Performance Indicators are: Safely, efficiently, on or under budget, and by the date set.
Normally when someone says, “I want to lose weight” it is followed by a specific date or event. Some of the Key Performance Indicators are: Safely, efficiently, on or under budget, and by the date set.
Stakeholders – family, doctor
What are the assumptions?
- Start on time
- All will go smoothly
- Enough cash to cover everything
- Everyone will stay healthy
What are some of the risk areas?
- Cashflow – this will depend on buying groceries or buying prepared meals
- Material availability -
- Weather changes – if you plan outside activities
- Injuries – home and gym exercising
Planning is certainly worth learning and applies in project management and life at large. Planning focuses on the objective. There can be a downside to that focus. We can miss other opportunities or alternatives. For example, in our vacation, if we plan all the things we want to do, we exclude others, and this hyper-focus can blind us to other alternatives. The same thing applies to work or business life. A focus on the plan, can blind us to other, perhaps better, alternatives. This is one of the benefits of Scrum and other Agile approaches to the work.
Jon is correct, if I plan my vacation too tightly, I might miss out of some activities I didn’t know existed.
One of the potential issues with Agile is the theory of no estimates. Not sure that I would go on vacation or start a home remodeling project without an estimate or at least a rough cost estimate. An option is to have a contingent amount for unplanned expenditures.
To take this a little be further, let’s bring personality types into the discussion. There are planner personalities and spontaneous personalities. We suppose if your preference is for planning, you will likely gravitate toward that approach to your life as well as your work life, and perhaps that is what led you to project management. Perhaps you are a spontaneous personality, less comfortable with structure preferring to keep your options open.1
Maybe one can run everything in life, maybe not. Maybe you have a preference, or maybe not. The lesson I have learned through the years, is my wife is really telling me to loosen up. Go with the flow. We have cash on hand, good available amounts on credit cards, let’s set a limit but allow for the unexpected. This is funny, my wife is the structured planning type of person in our family. I can do that, and as a project manager, I certainly have planned projects. In my case, I am the one counseling the missus to lighten up, adapt to what comes our way, delay decisions until we know something or are compelled. I submit that may not be the best way to manage projects, however, it is not a bad way to develop products, maybe.
Reference
1Hire Success: Deliberate/Planner vs.Spontaneous Personality Traits last accessed 8/19/21