CHAPTER 10

Conclusions

Now I hope that most the material you have read was served you at least to reflect upon and understand better who you are, and understand that if you believe in your dreams you will be unstoppable. And definitely you are. The most powerful word in my life has been and still is “thank you.” I am so thankful you have read this book or part of it, because it means that you are a dreamer project practitioner like me. It has a lot of value for me because our world needs a lot of project managers who believe in the projects they manage, professionals who are passionate, persistent, and patient and are able to manage successful projects in organizations.

This book is not only about who you are today and what is the level of your passion, persistence, and patience, it is about what you can be in the near future as a project manager. The energy in our veins helps us to move forward all the time, gives us the strength to continue on any initiative we start, and in any project we manage. Welcome to my 3Ps club. You are a great professional and every day you can say “today is a good day” and you need to be convinced that “tomorrow will be better.”

I told you many stories along this book, real stories that happened to me or to other project management professional colleagues. All of them are interesting stories for me because they are part of my life as a project management professional but also taught me many life lessons. Sometimes we want to know much too quickly and finally I understood that everything in life takes time, effort, and dedication. Then, be enthusiastic with your ideas and new projects, believe in them and use your passion, persistence, and patience to obtain great results.

On some occasions, you will feel like too weak to continue due to the number of obstacles to overcome. Do not allow your mind to do so; remember that you are a believer who can achieve your dreams only if you believe you can, and apply my 3Ps. From now you belong to my 3Ps club, and so never give up. We have many projects to manage worldwide and our society needs us; do not forget that. I am now in the sixth decade of my life but I still have a young heart that tells me every day “I need you. I want you and I love you.” Please move forward and take action. And believe me I am committed to do it. If you need any help on that, please let me know.

Some actions that project managers need to take when managing a project

Depending on the type of organization the project manager is working for, he or she may have more responsibility than authority. Then, in order to be successful at motivating project team members and other project stakeholders in an environment where the followers do not have to do what they are told, the project manager needs to find some other method to motivate them. Applying passion, persistence and patience will be great mechanisms to get all stakeholders engaged, and participating on achieving project results from the very beginning of the project and during the whole project life cycle.

In my experience, as a project manager, I learned how to apply passion, persistence and patience along the project life cycle. Some of the issues I found happened when:

I am blessed because I had the opportunity to work for functional, matrix and projectized organizations as a project manager. I lived the differences among them regarding project management.

First of all, when I worked for a functional organization the main problems, I found, were based on the inexistence of the project manager role. In that organization I had no authority at all and I needed to influence without authority obtaining smaller and smaller tangible results as earliest as possible. I believe in the profession since I started as a project manager, so my first practice was showing my passion to my manager in order to demonstrate him that I would be successful managing my team and the project would be successful. Passion and persistence were used by myself when working for that functional organization. I needed to overcome executive lack of project knowledge and lack of interest.

Secondly, when working for matrix organization I had a little bit more support, my project manager role existed formally in the organization but I needed to deal with functional managers that did not believe in project management. In those organizations what I did was spending a lot of time talking to functional and upper managers and trying to get educated into the strategic part of project management. Many meetings and presentations were organized till I gained little by little some management support. I continued using passion and persistence during years although the most difficult part was using my patience. I was really impatient over several years till I learned that not all professionals work and understand project management at the same pace. I was extremely persistent on teaching and explaining them what is in it for them.

Last but not least I had the opportunity to work for a strong matrix organization that more and more was converted into a projectized organization but even in that one I needed and I need to use my passion, persistence and patience for every project I managed. Executives are more aware of the project manager role, more conscious about the need of planning but as organization I need to obtain results in the most effective way.

I want to say that I strongly believe that every project manager needs to discover, develop and apply his/her passion, persistence and patience for managing projects. Based on that, I elaborated the previous mind map that is showing some of my 3Ps actions to be taken at every project you managed. Please review it. I expect you will be able to reflect upon them and customize it to be used by you at every project.

Summary and Conclusions

Passion is part of my life because I am blessed with working on the field that I love, project management, on a world where project management is the need of our society, on an environment with great colleagues to learn from. I strongly believe passion makes the difference between success and failure in our lives. Passion is very important. Following your passion is the secret to overcoming the setbacks all entrepreneurs face and it builds resistance against the inevitable naysayers who will question your vision. Passion is about believing in what you do, inspiring others to believe in it, and loving why you do what you do.

Passion requires courage, even young-like energy, to keep your eyes on your goal and do all you can to achieve it. If you want to see enthusiasm as one of your goals, you also need to decide how you will measure it. When you have the facts on which factors increase passion, and why, it is time to consider the obstacles standing in the way of inspiration.

Persistence is one of my principles. It is really difficult to achieve your goals in your first try, at least for me it usually was. Being persistent is a skill that can help you to achieve a goal, get what you wish, and can even be a means by which you assert yourself in the face of stubborn or difficult people. The greater the achievement you seek, the more likely you will persist to achieve it. Persistence is important in your life. It will mark how well you accomplish tasks that you set for yourself. Those who persist end up with the health, fitness, and vitality that we were striving for in the beginning when the motivation was high and the weather warm.

Patience is sometimes the most difficult skill to develop for dreamers. Having patience means being able to wait mainly in the face of frustration or adversity. So anywhere there is frustration or adversity we have the opportunity to practice it. Patience helps us achieve our goals, and it is linked with good health. Patient people are better team members and colleagues. Patience is connected to trust, hope, faith, love, and good character.

I never forgot my father’s comments and advice about life. He said life is a “quest with plenty of obstacles and tests.” Then you always need to be prepared to deal with them. So far, I found my father a very wise man who always encouraged me to study, to be prepared, and to exit from time to time out of my comfort zone. And I followed his advice, they have worked for me, and that philosophy of life can be found too hard for some people or just funny for some of them. The truth is that if I had not been enthusiastic in all that I did I could not survive in our challenging world. I started to work as a little negative person till I found a manager who opened my eyes and from then on, I started to be positive most of the time. My passion, persistence, and patience are more and more needed than never. I need full energy to achieve my goals. Some people admires how I show up a lot of energy every day and it is easy to explain, it happens because my mind believes I need it. That energy maintains me alive.

Final Thoughts

From time to time, people who attend my seminars or people who I am helping to manage a project or program tell me that I have been working for almost 40 years now. They say, “Alfonso, you are closer and closer to retirement. What will you do when you are retired?”

My answer is very direct. I do not see myself retired because project management is not my profession, but it is my hobby. I enjoy practicing, coaching, teaching, mentoring, or speaking on the project management field. Then I will stop when God retires me. It is obvious that with every passing year, your physical body deteriorates, but you need to take care of yourself physically by doing some frequent exercise accommodated to your age and also do some exercises for your mind every day. I strongly believe that professionals like me with almost 40 years of experience have a lot to offer to other professionals and organizations and also have a lot to learn till the day they pass away.

I am very happy because God allowed me to give testimonial that I have gone around this earth by writing books like this. Some people ask me why am I writing books so frequently, and I answer them that it is not a merit because I love writing. It is amazing the amount of learning that I get in every book I write. Then, why stop writing? It makes no sense for me.

Please ask yourself the following question: Is every day a good day for you? I hope this book to help you to find your real happiness in project management. I wish you happy projects.

Today is a good day and tomorrow will be better!