Project Management plays a critical role in nearly every organization. Knowing the right things to do, and the right times to do them are critical skills in today’s business world.
An entertaining and informative story to help you develop project management expertise
Holly Hewitt is facing the biggest challenge of her career.
Holly Hewitt has been assigned to manage the merger of two large food products companies. As she faces setbacks and challenges, she learns a few things about project management, and even mentors others on some of her own management and leadership knowledge. In Project Management 101 , Lew Sauder offers another business parable that charms as well as it informs.
Project Management plays a critical role in nearly every organization. Knowing the right things to do, and the right times to do them are critical skills in today’s business world. Project Management 101 provides you with 101 useful project management principals to optimize your professional performance.
Whether you are an experienced project manager or a beginner, Project Management 101 will help you become a project management professional, teaching you mistakes to avoid to achieve maximum productivity.
Project Management 101 will help you:
Develop leadership skills to build on for your entire career
Assess risks, resolve conflicts, and manage schedules and scope for successful projects
Learn how to successfully develop relationships with your staff, stakeholders, and executives
Effectively motivate your team for higher productivity
Establish yourself as a mentor in your organization
Excerpt
Holly Hewitt stared into space as she drove to work. The radio was on, but she didn’t hear it. When she arrived at the high-rise office building in the Chicago suburb, she didn’t remember the commute. Was there traffic? She had no idea.
She turned off the engine and sat in her seat. Her mind was racing like the wind in all directions. She trudged into the office building not even noticing the blue umbrella sky of early September.
The merger had been announced yesterday afternoon. Soon after the announcement, her boss, Alex Price, asked her to meet him in his office at nine o’clock the next morning. I guess I’m going to learn what it’s like to be fired, she thought.
It wasn’t as though she didn’t think she could find another job. She received calls from recruiters on a fairly regular basis. It was just that she liked her job and wasn’t keen on leaving.
Holly started working for Harrison Food Services when she graduated from college seven years previously. She graduated with a degree in information technology and started working as a software developer. The leadership at Harrison identified her as management material almost immediately. She wasn’t just a techie. She had excellent communication skills. She worked well with the technical folks and could communicate with the business people. It wasn’t long before they promoted her to team lead in charge of several developers. A few years later, they began putting her in charge of her own projects. As project manager, she managed several small- to medium-sized projects.
Harrison Food Services was a national distributor of food products including prepared soups, dairy products, and soft drinks. They were one of many companies that had courted Holly during her senior year in college. Harrison didn’t offer Holly the highest salary, but they did impress her. They distributed many of the products that she used on a daily basis. But it was the people who sold her on the company. They seemed friendly but professional. It felt like the best fit for her.
And for the last seven years, it was a great fit. She made some great friends there. That, she thought, would be the most difficult thing, leaving her friends. She didn’t know how many people would lose their jobs that day, but they would all start going their separate ways. She knew they would keep in touch for a while. Then they would gradually get busy with their new jobs and their new lives. It just wouldn’t be the same.
All of the employees were brought into the company auditorium late yesterday afternoon to announce that they would be merging with one of their biggest competitors, Lee Food Products. Lee was another food distribution company that provided dairy products as well as a full line of prepared ready-to-eat meals to the retail grocery sector.
The presidents of each company had just finished holding a joint press conference to announce the merger which, assuming Federal Trade Commission approval, would be finalized on July first of the following year. The newly formed company would operate under the moniker of Harrison-Lee Systems.
The announcement was as unexpected and sudden as an electric shock. Everyone walked out of the auditorium stunned. The president stated that no layoffs were planned as a result of the merger, but nobody believed that. Everyone assumed there would be some cutbacks. When Holly got back to her office, she saw the e-mail from Alex asking her to meet in his office the next day. That e-mail went through her with the force of a waterfall. She felt her heart in her throat. She began to shake uncontrollably. I can’t believe this is happening, she thought.
The rest of the day was a blur. She had the presence of mind to back up her personal files from her laptop. She didn’t remember driving home or if she ate anything that night. She stood at her window overlooking the park until the sun descended in the west. When she went to bed, she couldn’t seem to stop her racing mind. When was the last time she had updated her résumé? Who in her network should she contact first? It was all so overwhelming.
Holly sat outside of Alex’s office the next morning at eight fifty-nine. His administrative assistant stuck her head in his office and asked, “Are you ready for Holly?” There was no emotion in her voice to give Holly an indication of her fate.
She heard Alex’s gentle voice from inside the office. “Yes. Send her in please.”
She walked in and saw her boss sitting behind his desk. His credenza was filled with various mementos, primarily from his days of playing college football. Alex was a tall, handsome man who continued to keep in shape, despite being at least ten years past his playing days. He always had a fairly serious look on his face and today wasn’t an exception.
There was another man sitting in one of the two chairs across from Alex’s desk. There are always two people present when they fire you, she remembered.
“Have a seat, Holly. Thanks for meeting with me this morning,” Alex said.
“Sure,” Holly responded. Was there a choice, she wondered.
“This is Sam Welch. He’s the CIO of Lee Food Products.”
“Hello, Holly,” Sam said as he stood up to shake her hand.
“Good morning,” she replied. At least I’m getting fired by royalty, she thought.
“There’s been a lot of activity over the past few weeks as we planned yesterday’s announcement of the merger,” Alex continued. “We wanted to meet with you right away to tell you that I’m not going to be your manager anymore.”
That’s kind of a weird way to tell someone they’re fired, she thought. “Oh?” was all she could force out of her shaky voice.
“Holly, I’m being reassigned to an operations role. Sam is going to be the CIO of the newly combined company. He’ll be your new boss.”
It took a second or two for it to sink in with Holly. Then she suddenly blurted out, “My new boss?” She took a closer look at Sam. He appeared to be around fifty. He had a round, friendly face with dark rimmed glasses that framed his smiling eyes.
“Yes,” said Sam. “I’ve heard some great things about you, Holly. And not just from Alex. Every person I’ve talked to from Harrison Foods says that you’re the best project manager on staff.”
Holly sat there in shock. She went from expecting to get fired to being complimented by her new boss. “Thank you,” she managed to squeak out as she processed the change in course her fate had just taken.
“Holly we’re going to have a number of challenges as we bring together our two companies,” Sam continued, “not the least of which is merging the software applications of our organizations. The reason Alex and I wanted to talk to you this morning was because we want to know if you’d be interested in heading up that project.”
Holly didn’t know what to say. She was still getting used to the idea of keeping her job. Now she was being offered the biggest opportunity of her career. “That sounds great,” she finally said as she tried to hide the astonishment on her face.
“We’re calling the project Merge-Tech,” Sam went on. “It will require extensive analysis of both systems to understand how each system works and determine the best solution for combining the two systems. In addition to that, we will need you to establish and manage a team of people from both organizations, people from each company’s software vendors, and third party consultants.”
Holly stared at Sam incredulously. Finally Alex leaned back in his chair and said, “Well, Holly, what do you think?”
Professional Reviews
A pragmatic guide to why some project managers are so much more effective than others
Similar is style to The One Minute Manager Series, it tells the story of (technical) project management through a long shaggy-dog story. Sauder is very pragmatic and go-with-what-works, a refreshing rarity in writing about technical project management.
The story is both longer and less shaggy than Blanchard's series, and it provides a very accessible path into the thinking of an effective project manager. That's they key he preaches - do what's effective, whatever works, for you, in a given situation. Doesn't matter what worked for you last month, or for someone else. Every project has its own issues, its own situations, its own players (and occasional counterplayers, whom he doesn't omit and for whom he shares particular scorn).
Through the story, he draws a series of lessons and tips - 101 of them, in fact. All are reasonable, and most of them applicable to just about any project.
His experience in the real world shines through in such areas as identifying the need for project leadership in addition to project management, for example, or in his recognition that too many lists of assumptions are more accurately CYA documents.
This is a useful and fairly quick read for any project manager - a good series of tips and lessons for those in the early stages of their career, with some reminders - and the inevitable small bones to pick - for those who've been at it for some time. It will probably tick off those who spend their lives managing-to-not-fail rather than managing-to-succeed, as well as annoy some PMI members who believe in The Secret Handshake of Credentialed Project Managers. (That's okay - a lot of those folks could do with some gentle rattling of their world.)
An Excellent Read
This book greatly exceeded my expectations. I would recommend it for anyone interested in becoming a project manager or becoming a better project manager. Unlike the title suggests, this is not simply a dry list of tips. It goes beyond providing examples of each tip to integrating the tips seamlessly into a novella format. In the first pages we meet Holly, a strong, confident project manager who has just received the biggest assignment of her career. Through Holly's story, the reader feels truly invested in the outcomes of her project. We rejoice in her successes and cringe with her at her embarrassments. Each chapter ends with a review of the concepts Holly learns in that chapter, in case you were so immersed in the story you missed them, which is easier than you might think!
For those not currently in the field of project management, many of the advice in this book is still relevant and carries over into other career fields as well as one's personal life. Holly shines as an example of communication, having excellent people skills both with superiors and her team members. Holly takes both negative and constructive feedback in stride.
A helpful glossary of terms is included in the end of the book. This is one of the most reader-friendly career advice books I know of. Just like Holly, the author never takes a lecturing tone but rather comes across as a friendly mentor.
Must read for every PM!
I've worked with a lot of PMs implementing IT solutions I've sold. For many years, I was one of those that thought their main existence was to shuffle schedules and track others work. Then I met a good one! This book points out many of the practices this particular PM employed to turn my thinking around and consider them a valid participant of the project. #41 is one of my favorites. Will be recommending to my friends in PM. Good job Lew!
