Letting go of the Concrete Life Raft

By Dave Prior for Scrumalliance.org

On my first day of work on a job where my very official job title was listed as “Project Manager”, a stressed out, old, bearded guy took me and the other newly minted PM into a room to teach us how to do our job. The first thing he said was, “When I am done with you, everything you do will be a project. You’ll be unable to look at the world any other way.” Truer words were never spoken. Looking at the world as a series of smaller tasks, with dependencies, a baseline, and a critical path invaded every corner of my brain. I stopped brushing my teeth and started executing a series of steps, which had dental hygiene as a measure of success. A few years later, after months of study, I passed the PMP exam and began trying to impose my “enlightened” approach on the rest of the world with results that were occasionally successful, but mostly, not so much. Read more bei Scrumalliance.

Project Alphabet

Project alphabetSurely… every profession has its own jargon. A special glossary defining pretty precisely and effectively the work, tools or procedures of this profession. Such a jargon often sounds like a completely different language to outsiders. Let me try and give an example on this. Have you heard a pilot giving flight relevant information or the reasons of a delay? Were you always able to understand what was said? Not really? Well, that’s fine. It’s more than enough when the other crew members and the flight control do 😉

So… if you are a project manager  or stakeholder in a running project you too use a special language and alphabet which may sound unfamiliar to others. Here you see Elizabeth Harrin’s attempt to list it. A stands for Activity, B for Baseline, C for Change, etc

I bet that’s not Greek to you, is it?   😉