In the Kitchen with Project Management

by Robert K. Wysocki, Senior Consultant, Cutter Consortium

To give you a clear understanding of the journey through the contemporary world of project management and of becoming an exemplary project manager, we can make a strong parallel with the idea of being a cook or a chef. There is a difference. You can learn to be a cook and be able to routinely follow the recipes of others, or you can learn to be a chef and be able to create recipes for cooks to follow. Being able to follow recipes is essential to being a good cook, but being able to create recipes is the mark of a great chef. Thus, the effective project manager is more like a chef than a cook.

My girlfriend provides a great example. She makes an excellent cheesecake. Late one evening, she asked whether I would like her to bake us a cheesecake. How could I turn down an offer for a really great cheesecake? A few minutes later, I heard a groan coming from the kitchen. "What's wrong?" I asked. "We're all out of vanilla extract," she announced. The markets were all closed by now, so we would have to wait until tomorrow. We were both disappointed. A few minutes later, I heard a confident "yes" coming from the kitchen. "Did you find the vanilla extract?" I asked. She said that we had some vanilla frosting in the cupboard, and it had vanilla extract in it. So she figured out how much vanilla frosting she would have to use in order to substitute for the vanilla extract. That cheesecake was her best ever. She can create recipes, not just follow them.

To be successful as a project manager, you will need to be creative in the same way that a chef is creative. The sign of a great project manager is one who can adapt his or her approach to managing a project when the project does not meet the exact conditions of the documented approach or when a surprise arises during the course of doing the project and decisions on how to manage the project going forward must be made. (In my recent Executive Report, "Are You a Cook or a Chef? Succeeding in the Contemporary World of Project Management" [Vol. 9, No. 10], I define the project management lifecycle [PMLC] models that you can use as an aid to becoming that great project manager.)

I suspect that for many of you this report will be your first exposure to just how broad and deep the world of managing projects can be. It never ceases to amaze me that even after 40 years of practicing project management, I am still encountering new challenges and learning wondrous things about this amazing discipline we call project management. You should realize that project management is not just a matter of blindly following process and procedure or routinely filling in forms and writing reports; it is also a challenging world where you will be called on to function at the limits of your creativity and to be courageous at all times. It is a world in which you will continually face situations you have never faced before and one that will require you to look inside your toolkit and concoct workable strategies.

For those of you who are practitioners, it's no secret that your project management landscape has changed and continues to change. With the changes come a constant challenge to assess project conditions and adjust your approach to managing the project. We live in a world where the characteristics of the project and the environment within which it takes place are constantly changing, and those changes should inform the project manager as to the tools, templates, and processes that will be most effective. As we closely examine those characteristics, we gain an appreciation of just how challenging is the task of effective project management.

We are not in Kansas anymore! The discipline of project management has morphed to a new state, and as of the writing of this article, that state had not yet reached a steady one. It may never reach a steady state. The business world is in a constant state of flux and change and will always be that way. That will continue to influence how we approach managing projects. And our approach will likewise be in a constant state of flux and change. What does this mean to the struggling project manager? Take courage; it's not as grim as it may seem.

I welcome your comments on this Advisor and encourage you to send your insights to rwysocki@cutter.com.

-- Robert K. Wysocki, Senior Consultant, Cutter Consortium