Firefighter, Arsonist or Project Manager?

It's funny that as I have spent the past 15 years working with project organizations, I often wonder whether we are truly Firefighters, Arsonists or Project Managers. I have seen so many organizations and have been guilty in our own organization of praising those firefighters who are often the busiest, most talented, passionate and motivating people to work with on a project team. You know the ones I am referring to. We have a schedule for what is to be accomplished that day and everyone is heading out to accomplish their assigned tasks when the call comes in. It could be a call from the owner of the project or a call from a subcontractor or project employee and suddenly there is a blaze that has to be out immediately. We all know who to call; that one person or team that we can always count on to solve the problem and get the fire put out. After years of implementing project solutions from Microsoft, I always looked for those Firefighters when I was talking to companies about deploying Microsoft Dynamics SL, Microsoft Project Server or Microsoft SharePoint technologies. I wanted to know that the company had that person who could always be called on to put out a project fire when needed.

However, as I began to work more and more with project companies to show them how to better use project solutions, I began to see a pattern. There is always a superman, a firefighter, the PM who could leap tall buildings in a single bound, or could put out any fire no matter where or when it was started. This project resource was skilled in the ways of firefighting, due to years of experience living in fires, however not realizing that they might actually be a non-suspecting arsonist. I began to see how project solutions, when deployed properly, actually could prevent fires. Then I began to see how the person we all were looking for when projects went bad, was often the person or team responsible for starting the fire. It is not that they started the fire on purpose. However, when you are always in a firefighting mode, you are not able to look at potential project issues that may be beginning to simmer. The Microsoft tools that we see companies successfully utilize allow everyone in the organization to see what is happening on a project. This could be the Project Executive, wanting to know how the sum of all projects are leading to their company's success, or to be able to better see a portfolio of projects that provides information to see which projects might be next month's fire. Microsoft Project solutions can allow project employees to surface project issues or risks at the time they occur. This helps resolve the problem before the Fireman has to get involved because the flames are going to take the whole project down. It may be that these Project Solutions can be utilized by the Project Managers within an organization so that even though they may not have the Firefighter skills of some people within the project organization, they can utilize tools that would avoid the fire to begin with.

Finally, once the project organization learns to utilize project solutions to better manage their projects, the skills of the firefighter can be used to help prevent future fires by addressing particular questions rather than jumping in feet first to put out the fires. Because Project Executives are being alerted to project issues at a Project Portfolio level, project employees are surfacing issues prior to fires beginning and other project managers are getting better at managing projects. New Vision Project Solutions has learned that sometimes lessons learned after a fire can actually provide information as to what started the fire and how to prevent the fire to begin with. The key to successfully preventing fires is to stop future fires from starting by managing project issues and utilizing project solutions that are geared to issue and risk management of projects. This ensures that issues are addressed prior to becoming a full-fledged forest fire. Project Solutions can make for smoother projects, happier clients and less exhausted project employees and subcontractors as well as Project Managers who don't dread picking up the phone or checking e-mail. Who knows…with the proper project management strategies and solutions, we might even make Smokey The Bear happier as well.

 

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www.nvprojectsolutions.com