PREFACE

Like yours, my business life and my personal life have been very chaotic this year. Ironically, I have been writing this project management book, offering others advice about how to juggle all the projects in their lives while I haven't been doing a very good juggling job myself. I love teaching project management, and this, my third book on the topic, has enabled me to do what I love and has helped me get my own project management back where it should be. I hope it will be helpful to you in the same way.

I work in the real world. Academic project management is a nice starting place, but not enough for the complexity of the things that I want to manage. As I speak, the dog is scratching the door and my husband is rewiring the stereo system at full volume in the family room. My teenager's boyfriend will be here any minute and then we're all off to church later this evening. One daughter wants me to look at the IKEA website and help her (with my credit card) redesign her room. The other daughter wants me to help her load CDs on her new Chocolate cell phone. It's the week after Christmas, and the decorations are piled in the hall, near a foothill of laundry. Been here?

Professionally, my 20-year-old consulting company, Russell Martin & Associates, has been redefined at least 20 times. Right now, project management is critical to our ability to survive and grow. Like you, I didn't have time to do anything else, especially write a book. Sales were slow last year and we were scrambling to evolve our marketing strategy and product focus. Around this time, I heard David Norton speak. He shared this statistic: less than 10 percent of all companies successfully implement their strategies. I was convinced that if we could not implement our strategy, we'd be closed by the end of 2006. It was also motivating to hear that most of our competitors were likely to be unsuccessful at their strategies.

I organized our strategy into projects and explicitly named project and task managers. My staff are not project managers, and I had overestimated how much they understood (ironic, since we are so busy teaching others!). We prioritized our projects and worked the plan. Making the transition to this approach is still evolving; unfortunately, you can't just create a plan and then walk away. The edges are always shifting. We often revisit the questions, What is a project? and Where does everything else go? But we've made dramatic changes, and I'm more confident that people move through change more easily when it's clear what is expected of them. This directive clarity is what project management brings.

The point is to communicate. The more chaos, the more temptation to run and hide, but the more critical it is to communicate. In my business this has been a constant challenge. In our customers' businesses, it's exponentially more challenging.

Complex project management software, techniques, and methods are very useful when you're doing large, “cross-silo,” mission-critical projects. We've worked with very large, global customers who have tried to implement rigorous, cross-functional project management strategies. They attempt to go from anarchy (everyone doing what they want) to dictatorship (everyone blindly following the process), but eventually find they need to come back to the middle—to real project management. That's my expertise.

In a sense, my company has carved a niche translating academic/ theoretical project management to real-life project managers in the business trenches. We provide project management learning to training organizations, information technology (IT) units, and often entire corporations. A good project manager cannot hide behind a methodology. Good project management requires a person who can think, a person who knows how to pick the best approach for a specific project. You'll find in this book that my 10 steps parallel a rigorous approach while backing off the complexity a bit.

These same large project management tools and techniques can be roadblocks when you're managing the kinds of projects filling most of your personal project portfolio. I've tried to write a book to share with you a “slimmed-down” version of the best of project management. I know that if you implement any one of these steps, your project success will improve; and if you implement all of them, you'll be much more successful than you are now.

Many of you are unexpected project managers. Although you never dreamed you'd be a project manager, suddenly your whole work life revolves around projects. You're the manager on some of these projects, some you participate in, and you compete with others for scant resources. The project manager with the organizational skills necessary to manage this project maze will thrive. That's what I hope this book will help you develop—the ability to navigate the real world of your projects.

This book and companion CD-ROM are my attempt to outline the 10 most important things that a person needs to do to improve his or her capacity and reduce the stress level. Whether it's your workload or your family schedule, it's not likely that the amount of chaos is going to diminish soon. What I've written here is not an organizational approach, but it will fit nicely into whatever policy your company has. Most of our customers feel the same way. Most have implemented a formal project management methodology but have not been able to realize the hoped-for benefits.

And now it's your turn, reader. Use this book to become more resilient and agile. Practice flexible structure—at all times have a plan for focus, but always be ready to change when the situation dictates. Learn to sit quietly and think rather than just jump up and do. Feel free to contact me with your questions as you learn. (My email address is [email protected], and my phone number is 317.475.9311.) I'll be working on these things with you. Peace.

Acknowledgments

My ability to manage projects is only as good as my home team. Thanks to Doug, Kelly, Kristin, and Katherine for keeping it all together as I sneaked out to write early every morning. I am most proud of my family project.

Thanks, also, to Mark Morrow (my editor at ASTD) for patience as I worked through this book and my challenges this year. Mark, you are a good friend.

Thanks to Margie Brown, Vija Dixon, Carol Mason, and our newest team member Tina Osborn for undying support and energy in making our transition from an event-oriented to a project-oriented company.

This year, I've had the privilege to employ and work with some unbelievably good project managers. I would like to thank Mary Cook, Janice Daly, and Susan Vaughn for sharing their abilities to manage complexity and change.

Huge thanks to Christine Cotting, editor-extraordinaire, able to make you laugh while you're avoiding your writing. She has become a dear friend through this adventure.

Finally, I dedicate this book to the other side of my brain, Vija Dixon, who is beginning the most courageous fight of her life. PHAO (Pray Hard and Often).

Lou Russell
May 2007