Sometime we, the project managers, get so much into the nitty-gritty of the daily working of our projects that we forget to take the 10,000-feet view of the project.
There is a famous experiment from the seventies that shows what happens when you place too much attention on the details of a project and too little on the big picture view. The experiment goes something like this: There is a group of people tossing balls among themselves. Some of them are wearing white tee shirts and the rest are in black tee shirts. Your job is to count the number of throws that happen between the white tee shirt wearing people only. Go ahead, try it.
So, did you see it?
For some of us, especially for those coming from the roles of supervisors and the executors of the actual activities, getting into the fine details of how each activity should be carried out is almost ingrained in our brains. Whenever we see something that we think is not the right way of doing it, we jump into the fray to correct it. We start giving instructions to the workers on what to do and how to do it. But that, I believe, is not the right way to go about managing your project. Unless you are the only one in the team, you have supervisors and area managers for that level of involvement. Your job is to look at the overall picture and be aware of all the factors that might impact the success of the project.
When you become too involved in the minutiae and the step-by-step details of how tasks should be performed it becomes harder to spot the gorilla (something unexpected) wandering by and either taking advantage of an opportunity or deal with an unforeseen risk.
There is a famous experiment from the seventies that shows what happens when you place too much attention on the details of a project and too little on the big picture view. The experiment goes something like this: There is a group of people tossing balls among themselves. Some of them are wearing white tee shirts and the rest are in black tee shirts. Your job is to count the number of throws that happen between the white tee shirt wearing people only. Go ahead, try it.
So, did you see it?
For some of us, especially for those coming from the roles of supervisors and the executors of the actual activities, getting into the fine details of how each activity should be carried out is almost ingrained in our brains. Whenever we see something that we think is not the right way of doing it, we jump into the fray to correct it. We start giving instructions to the workers on what to do and how to do it. But that, I believe, is not the right way to go about managing your project. Unless you are the only one in the team, you have supervisors and area managers for that level of involvement. Your job is to look at the overall picture and be aware of all the factors that might impact the success of the project.
When you become too involved in the minutiae and the step-by-step details of how tasks should be performed it becomes harder to spot the gorilla (something unexpected) wandering by and either taking advantage of an opportunity or deal with an unforeseen risk.
I want to do Project Management Professional (PMP) but to do that I will be doing Certified Associate in Project Management (CAPM) first. What kind of jobs will be there, as I am planning to work while studying both CAPM and PMP in Australia.
ReplyDeleteproject management