 I’m a huge baseball fan. I love the strategy behind the game and how teams adapt their play to fit the need of a game. I especially enjoy how the role of a pitcher is used. Simply put, there are three basic categories of pitchers:
Since about the 1970s, the closing pitcher role has gained in prominence with notable players like Mariano Rivera, Rich “Goose” Gossage, and Trevor Hoffman. A key stat for closers is the number of games saved. Relief pitchers, while not as notable as starters or closers, are typically comprised of career relievers or may also consist of former starters and closers. There are also some players, most notably John Smoltz and Dennis Eckersley, who began their careers as starting pitchers, but then found themselves being premier closing pitchers. Some closing pitchers even have songs that are played as they enter a game. (Any time Rivera entered a home game in Yankee Stadium, “Enter Sandman” by Metallica would be played through the PA system.) All the players described above are baseball pitchers; it’s their role, or branding, that distinguishes how and when they are used in a game. The pitcher analogy also applies to a project manager’s branding. Read more at ProjectManagement.com.
0 Comments
Hal was a new leader over a team of six followers. He committed to his manager that he would be a “learning leader,” and read leadership books to improve his skills. Almost every month in team meetings Hal included a book report on his latest book and the leadership techniques he wanted to put into practice. At first the team was receptive, but after the first few books a pattern emerged. Hal would talk about what he learned and implement the new methods . . . until he read the newest book on his list, making the previous book’s approach yesterday’s news—pushed aside. The team grew exasperated with Hal’s technique du jour only to have it replaced with a newer model. Even worse, the theory stayed just that, theory. Hal evaluated himself based on his knowledge; the team evaluated him based on his actions. Hal ultimately lost his team leader role; all that theory never making its way to reality.
 Patty and I were talking with our son Trevor about some very successful engagements he recently completed: illustrating two books for two different authors. I told Trevor that a major part of my professional focus is to help him be a successful illustrator and graphic artist and to help ensure that AI doesn’t replace him.
Now, quite honestly, I have absolutely no talent when it comes to anything art-related; I can’t draw anything that resembles anything. But, I can help him with his client management skills and profitability, and I can be a voice in the room about AI. When I told him that my primary professional focus was on helping him, he said, “So, what you’re doing is about your legacy, right?” His observation caught me off guard—in a good way. As I thought about it more, I genuinely want to help Trevor be a successful illustrator and graphic artist. Trevor recognizes my desire to help him, and has told me many times how grateful he is for the help. He also recognizes that my helping him fulfills something very important to me, which is helping others to help themselves. I not only appreciate his being grateful, I also feel all warm inside about his acknowledgment that I am trying to live my legacy. Read more at ProjectManagement.com. Some time back, I took over a high-risk program from a client project manager. The program had a contractually-fixed due date with a material business impact if the date wasn’t met. There was a minimum-bar scope to which we had to adhere: no subtracting scope or adding to scope.
Budget was not an issue; we (fortunately) didn’t have to worry about how much the program cost. The marching orders were clear: hit the date, manage the scope, and don’t worry about money. The problem was that there was too much scope to hit the date using conventional waterfall or agile methodologies. We had four months to deliver what in reality was eight schedule months of work. Going back and saying, “It can’t be done” wasn’t an option because of the contractual requirement. So we got creative. We divided the work into four sprints consisting of one or more baseline meetings, development, integration testing, user acceptance testing, and a go-live meeting with our sponsors at the end of each of the four months. We not only overlapped the sprints, we also overlapped steps within the sprints. In any given sprint, we had concurrent development and integration testing activities with users participating in integration testing to identify potential user acceptance issues earlier (something I refer to as “canary in the mine” testing). It was very messy, and not something I would have designed at the outset of a program. But I didn’t have the luxury of designing a “right way to do it” approach. I am confident that if a project auditor did a post-mortem on the approach, I’d get called out as having created and managed a hot mess. And it was a hot mess—but we got the work done to the minimum-bar scope and the contractually fixed date. Our leadership didn’t give a fig about whether or not we did something the “right” way. We got the job done, hot mess and all. My purpose for this opening story is not to engage in a waterfall/agile debate. The truth is that we were very hybrid in how we worked. My focus is to talk about something PMs need to avoid in this AI age: long division syndrome. Let me explain. Read more at ProjectManagement.com. When I was in college, I sold clothes in a department store. I was super-ambitious, and was never satisfied with my current position. When I was a salesperson, I wanted to be a department manager. When I was a department manager, I wanted to be an assistant store manager.
In my final semester, I was taking 18 credit hours and had reached assistant store manager, working 40 hours a week. I had taken on way too much but felt I could handle it. I simply wanted those promotions and was unwilling to compromise on work or school. Fortunately for me, the semester ended and I graduated (with my worst semester GPA ever) before completely running myself into the ground. I was protected from myself. Promotions are a great thing. They’re a recognition of a job well done with rewards including increased responsibility, compensation, and stature. At the same time, they can create significant career roadblocks if not managed intentionally. It’s important to be thoughtful as to the why behind your desire to be promoted. To help this along, this article is about six yellow flags you should consider when pursuing a promotion. Read more at ProjectManagement.com.
As a parallel to the book, I developed an excel spreadsheet to help you define good-enough goals and work towards those goals. The Nine Crucial Elements to Achieve Good-Enough Contentment Assessment includes an annual goal setting tab to help you identify what you'd like to achieve by the end of the year for each good-enough contentment element and put steps in place to do it. You can download the spreadsheet which you should use after reading the book.
Recently I wrote an article about creating a sustained lifestyle. In the article I introduced a concept which contrasts achievement (doing something meaningful that accomplishes a desired result which gives you joy) and stress (the degree of mental, physical, or emotional strain undertaken to achieve a desired result). In the model I define four different lifestyles driven by achievements and stress, as follows:
This one is a bit of a departure from my typical article topics.
Recently I wrote a book about what I call “good-enough contentment.” It’s an allegory about a forty-something man who is unhappy with his life. After a magical train ride, he learns to define what contentment means in nine areas of his life: career, family, health, friendships, finances, leisure, spirituality, giving, and legacy. Writing the story caused me to look back at my own life--the things I did well and the many mistakes I made. It inspired me to write about nine nuggets that I wish I could go back in time to tell my younger self. Some I would have done the same all over again, others radically different. All, however, are worth putting down in writing to spur your thinking about things you need to start, stop, or continue. Here they are: The Sustainable PM series focuses on four drivers for a holistic, long-term career:
In my first article of this series, I shared three essential pillars of career sustainability. This article focuses on the second driver: a sustainable lifestyle. In 4 Ways Your PM Career Sustainability Can Go Wrong, Trish is a hard-charging project manager who seems to always be working. She believes she has balance because she takes time to eat and go to the gym. She works hard and plays hard. She has opportunities to dial it back a bit and not run so hard, but when she collapses while leading a Zoom meeting, the decision to dial it back is made for her. Read more at ProjectManagement.com.  Some time back I wrote about 4 Ways Your PM Career Sustainability Can Go Wrong. In the article, I introduce the concept of career sustainability and the importance of running as if you were in a marathon versus a sprint. The article focused on four fictional but realistic characters:
Each of the characters had some successes, but also had some blind spots that impacted their sustainability in their respective jobs:
I’m a strong advocate of career sustainability. I believe that skills, lifestyle, relationships, and stewardship are key drivers to help you as a professional be more consistently effective and content in your work and play lives. To that end, what follows is a four-part series focused on each driver:
Let’s kick things off with the first driver. Read more at ProjectManagement.com. |
Topics
All
Reprints
Contact Lonnie about article reprints. Please specify article you wish to reprint. Backlist
See Lonnie's Amazon Author Page Archives
July 2026
|
RSS Feed