Author: Adi Muslic, PMP
“Project Management, It’s All Bollocks!” was the 5th online event organized by PMI Switzerland on 2nd of July. If you missed it, this is a 5 minute read to learn more about it.
The presenter, Peter Taylor, is an accomplished communicator, leader, and professional speaker, popular around the world for keynotes and as an event host. He is also known as the author of "The Lazy Project Manager" book.
"Project Management, It’s all Bollocks !" is also the title of the book that Peter and Susie Palmer-Trew wrote together. It is explaining the basics of project management to new project managers, project managers revisiting those basics, and those who deliver changes as a part of their day job (but are not project managers) in their organizations that are not recognized as projects.
Peter, made the presentation quite interactive by the use of the Mentimeter tool. It helped to engage the audience right from the beginning.
Peter started by asking: What do you love about project management? On the screen we could see: people, collaboration, making a difference, bringing value, getting things done, etc.
The next question was: What do you hate about project management? Answers were: Stake-holders, politics, process, admin work, tools.
And this is, Peter told us, what the first chapter of the book is about, all annoying things in project management.
Then Peter introduced the second chapter, as the essence of project management - the Seven Cracking Ideas.
For this article, I decided to pick one of them: Communication versus Engagement!
It tells us that we have to know our project management community. We need to know their needs and expectations. We should not spend much time focusing on those who are against or unsupportive. We should make sure that those who are supportive or at least undecided receive clear and consistent communications. Steady regular communications are also important.
An engaged audience is much more responsive and active in contributing to value creation.
Peter also shared a couple of examples from his rich experience advising that we should always explain what project management is about and how to contribute to value creation.
The event ended with a Q&A session. One of the questions that attracted my attention was whether we are allowed a failure in a consultant’s role. Peter’s answer was yes. He added that we need to have an open and honest relationship built with the client. They understand that we all make mistakes, as long as you do what you can to mitigate those problems.
If you like to watch it, 1hr 15min long event recording is available on the PMI Switzerland’s YouTube channel.
Kind regards,
Adi