Bellwether

We meet at the office, the breeding ground for many of my strongest relationships.  I’ll admit that I am hesitant initially; I don’t want to go near him.  We are forced together out of need, and become quite close over the years.  In fact, he gets me through some of my toughest times.  Looking back now, I can see that the day I am introduced to Microsoft’s schedule-making software called “Project”, I fall in love.  I may be one of the few.  Project is intimidating at first.  He keeps his cards close to the vest, opening up to reveal himself only to those willing to invest the time getting to know him. Those who do are rewarded with the ability to play him in ways that truly allow him to sing. Once I see who he is inside, I want to take him everywhere with me.

While I thought it could never happen, Project and I grow distant over the years.  I move on from my role as a project manager, into more strategic positions. But I’m noticing that the skills I honed in that role serve me well where I’m at today.  The job of a project manager is to lead a team, get the right people sitting at the table, understand our issues, direct meaningful discussion, drive to decisions and document what matters. The project manager is the lodestar, the keystone of a team accomplishing a common goal.  The schedule is the map, riding shotgun, outlining how to get from where we sit today to where we need to be tomorrow.

Thinking about it in those broad terms, makes it clear why one of my soothsaying advocates touts the value in thinking about transferable skills when contemplating your next career move. Mapping out the path is one of my towering strengths, with boundless applications.  How much of work, and life, is about getting from Point A to B? 

So Project and I are back together now, and I couldn’t be happier. When you’re among project managers, he’s randy, reveling in a full dance card; among team members from all over our organization, he appears fully committed to a monogamous relationship with me; no one else is asking him out.  In fact, I’ve even been the object of envy, in my flagrant public displays of affection for him, whipping out my painstakingly detailed step-by-step task list complete with durations, linked dependencies, and assigned resources.  I gush, able to see exactly where we’re going, how long it will take us to get there, and who is on the journey.  Just writing about it puts, if I’m really being honest, a somewhat smug smile on my face.

Oddly, though, I need him to date others. I need them to see his value, to love him as I do. When I’m part of a team lacking a road map, the cartographer in me flails around looking for a paper bag, first to breathe into, second to sketch out a plan, putting something, anything down on paper.  What do you mean we don’t have a schedule?  How do we do this without one?

Some are afraid of the map.  When we put pen to paper, thinking through everything that needs to happen, what we need from each other, where we need to come together, there are no secrets.  No place for anyone to hide.  People are held accountable. It becomes real.  Big, expensive, high-exposure projects with the propensity to get out of hand mean someone’s head has to roll if they fail, right?  There’s an element of safety in hazy accountability.

Sometimes it seems impossible to know where to start, so developing the schedule is postponed as we figure out what exactly we’re doing.  Expectations around how long it will take are made arbitrarily and before you know it, everyone has somehow agreed to a date, but no one really knows where it came from.  An unrealistic expectation may have been set, and now because it’s out there we’re afraid to vet it.  So the longer we go without a map, the harder it is to create one, for fear it will tell us something we can’t quite face.

The thing about maps though, is that they aren’t meant to be set in stone, dictating the only way of doing something.  Even the most organized project manager who starts with a detailed schedule on Day 1 knows that she will need to make adjustments, to adapt as the project unfolds.

 

There are an infinite number of ways to get to where you’re going.  The map is meant to be a guide.  As we follow it, we learn what works and what doesn’t, what decision-makers need to embrace and fully support what we’re moving toward.  It’s not only achieving the ultimate goal, it’s engaging our people along the way to believe in and see the value in the work we’re doing.  The map is the ground you walk on until you get to where you stand.

And that ground is not always what we think or plan it to be. We change our approach based on what happens on the path.  That’s not only okay, it’s to be expected.  There are points along the journey that can’t be missed, that won’t be missed, but there are also countless alternates and detours between those points that will not only take you to your destination, but enable everyone impacted to understand and believe in why you’re standing there.

The lodestar asks for a map, not for fear she'll veer off course, but to chart a new course as she lives through the moment. Every step we take is an opportunity to invite others to join us where we stand. We can’t possibly know how to do that until we start walking.