The Lazy Project Manager and the Project Peter Finer Taylor

Contents

The Lazy Project Manager and the Project from Hell

Acknowledgements

Foreword

1 Back in the comfy chair

2 Project superstars

3 The project from hell

4 More about hell

5 To the workshop and beyond

Appendices

About the authors

More from Infinite Ideas

Copyright information

The Lazy Project Manager and theProject from Hell

To our respective children and grandchildrenwho continue

to offer up projects from heaven and hell.

Peter Taylor (Dad),Michael Finer (Dad and Papa).

Michael Finer (Dad and Papa).

The lazy project manager and theProject from Hell

Back in the comfy chair for more productivelazy wisdom and then off to the time machineto save the worst project in history – and all

before teatime.

PETER TAYLOR WITH MICHAEL FINER

Acknowledgements

Acknowledgements

I have been running the Project from Hell workshop invarious forms for the last nine years and I am delighted tobring this to a much wider audience through my trainingpartners and through this book.

Thank you to everyone who has ever experienced (andhopefully enjoyed) the workshop as it has evolved overthose years. Certainly the feedback has always been verypositive. And thank you to those partners who havesigned up to deliver the workshop – and of course to mypublishers, Infinite Ideas, for helping bring this ‘project’to fruition.

My special thanks go to Michael Finer and his Dylanmaecolleagues, David Corfan and Keith Chambers, fordeveloping my basic workshop offering into what it istoday, and to Michael for producing the third part of thisbook. Thanks also to the team at Infinite Ideas forhelping bring the book into being.

Please do let everyone that you are connected with in theproject world know about this unique book, and let’s getthe world experienced in delivering projects from heaven,rather than battling those projects from hell.

Peter ‘Lazy PM’ Taylor

Working with Peter Taylor, my colleagues at DylanmaeLimited – David Corfan and Keith Chambers – and ourpublishers Infinite Ideas, has been a pleasure: thecomplete opposite of the Project from Hell. In the lastfew years I’ve become an adherent of Peter’s science ofsmart laziness but just wish I had done so decadesearlier.

Michael Finer

Michael Finer

Foreword

I know that Peter likes famous quotes. So I will use anold Latin quote to start this foreword – ‘Non multa, sedmultum!’ (Not many, but very much!). Simply, thisancient saying perfectly summarizes my feelings everytime I think about the books and the conferences ofPeter Taylor.

The Lazy Project Manager, Leading SuccessfulPMOs and now The Lazy Project Manager and theProject from Hell – all have followed a beautifulprinciple for project management: quality not quantity.Using as a thread well-proven theories and as a needlehis vast personal experience, Peter manages to buildpowerful concepts on which we can all tailor accordingto our needs. He doesn’t offer magical tools or recipes.Excellent PM standards and methodologies are alreadyin place and there is no need to tackle them again (andPeter knows this). But, most of the time, the problem isto fit all of these instruments correctly and efficiently inour day by day project work or in (even worse) projectcrises.

And this is where Peter comes to the rescue – picking upand using the right piece of this informational puzzle at theright time is one of the main qualities of a ‘lazy projectmanager’. Of course it is not the only one but, for aproject in distress (in Hell, perhaps), it might prove to bedecisive.

Once again – do not expect that by becoming a lazyproject manager you will be a superhero savingeverything in a project by pulling magic tricks from thehat. I attended the first session of the Lazy Project

hat. I attended the first session of the Lazy ProjectManager and the Project from Hell workshop at our PMsummer school and I was (again) puzzled. Instead of amagical recipe, Peter showed me obvious and common-sense solutions which I had at my disposal at anymoment. The only magic that he did was to point out theright behaviour and the most efficient steps in rescuing aproject. And the whole workshop proved (if neededonce more) that everything is within our easy reach. Wejust need to have the right attitude and the correct pulse,to accept change, to grasp the opportunity and… the restI will let you discover by yourself (through reading thebook and attending the workshop).

I got many ‘aha!’ moments reading about productivelaziness and listening to Peter teaching the science ofrescuing projects. Therefore I strongly recommend TheLazy Project Manager and the Project from Hell.

Catalin-Teodor Dogaru, MBA, Ph.D, PMP, Vice-President of Education and Certification, PMI RomaniaChapter – and a Lazy Project Manager!

A house that does not have one warm, comfychair in it is soulless.

May Sarton

1Back in the comfy chair

In which you get to hear more of the random wisdom ofthe Lazy Project Manager as he sits back once again inthe comfy chair.

More productive laziness


If you haven’t read The Lazy Project Manager this willmost likely confuse you, so feel free to buy the book rightnow:

Buy from Kindle store UKBuy from Kindle store US

Good. Now, once you have read it – or cheated in that‘oh so productively lazy way’ – we can continue. Younow know about the comfy chair and you now knowabout all that lazy stuff.

Welcome back.

So here I am in the comfy chair that productively lazyproject managers can enjoy from time to time (for thegood of their projects and project teams, youunderstand). And here I will hold court and speak moreof the ‘lazy’ world that I advocate – and that many, manyproject managers seem to aspire to.

To date, many thousands of you have read copies of TheLazy Project Manager and I have presented at over ahundred events over the last few years – conferences,webinars, training sessions, etc. – to some 15,000would-be lazy people. And the most common question Iget (other than ‘can you come and speak at mycompany?’) is ‘how can you start being “lazy”?’

STARTING BEING LAZY

When starting out in a job or role for the first time there isoften a belief (both from the individual and sometimesalso from their manager) that being extremely busy andputting in long hours can be productive. This is rarely thecase over any length of time.

case over any length of time.

Now, I am not suggesting that on day one you declarethat you are off at 5.00 p.m. regardless of what is goingon. No, I am only saying that by just being in the office oron site – in the clear view of management – does notequate to doing your job to the best of your abilities or ina productive manner.

No one will ever tell you to be lazy, but they equallywon’t tell you to be busy. The expectation is that you willget the job done to a good level of quality and within theexpected time and/or cost frame. If you can achieve this,and still leave time for other matters that will raise yourprofile and increase your personal skills and knowledge,then all the better, I say.

And where better to start than to focus the art ofproductive laziness in the area of communication?

The would-be lazy project manager will think very, verycarefully about what they need to communicate and howthey need to communicate it, and why they arecommunicating what they are communicating.

The general guidance is that some 70–90% of a projectmanager’s time will be spent in communicating. That is70–90% of your time! So, if you play the productive lazygame at all and only apply it in one area of projectmanagement it makes blinding sense to do it here, incommunication. This is by far the biggest activity andoffers the greatest opportunity of spending time in thecomfy chair.

Imagine you were able to save some of that 70–90% ofyour time. How much more relaxed would you be?

Beyond this, then, consider how you are using yourproject team. Are they being truly utilized in the sense of

project team. Are they being truly utilized in the sense ofapplying their combined knowledge and skills? Couldyou use them more, delegate more, trust them more, andbenefit from their experience more? I bet you could. Tryit.

Finally, something I have always advocated is having fun.While this does not necessarily allow you to be moreproductively lazy it does bring a very positive feeling toany project, and thus should encourage the wider team tobe more lazy (in a good way, of course).


So there you have it – but what about the real newbies?What about the ‘green beans’ who have just entered intothe business and project world? How can they get thebest possible start?

ADVICE FOR THE GREEN BEAN

Projects are, by their very nature, tricky beasts and inorder for a newbie to learn the practical skills of projectmanagement they should ensure that they enter the PMworld in a controlled way. Hopefully being handed a newproject to lead and being told to ‘get on with it’ (as I waswhen I became a PM) is something that is long gone.

The ideal would be for any green beans out there toexperience project reality by taking up a minor part inanother project manager’s project, watching and learningand getting involved in a small way.

In addition, if there are project reviews, health checksand retrospectives taking place (and I really hope thatthere are) then they are another great entry experiencefor young ones to see and learn. Another safe – or

for young ones to see and learn. Another safe – ormaybe safer – environment might be internal projects,rather than external, customer-facing ones. The key is tomake the environment of learning a safe one.

In addition, if a newbie can secure a mentor from outthere in project management land, someone who will bethere to listen to them from time to time and gently pointthem in the right direction when they need help, then sucha person will be invaluable in their early days of being aproject manager. The key is to have a connection toexperience in the form of a friendly guiding voice.

And they should definitely make the effort to look outsidetheir own organization and connect to some trulywonderful project managers and experts out there on the‘www’. As I have said before, there is a huge amount ofadvice and guidance through local project managementgroups, through conferences and meetings, through onlinediscussions and blogs, and lots more. (Perhaps in thisarea the ‘greener’ ones might have the upper hand on us‘grey’ ones,1 since all this social connectivity is secondnature to them). The key is to build the best possiblenetwork for now and the future, and to use it wisely.


The other big challenge these days is the fact that, withthe global nature of many projects and therefore thebringing together of many cultures, languages, time zones,etc. – added to the fact that there is a little lesswillingness to spend so much money on travel – you endup with the virtual team. And one of the biggestchallenges to projects these days is the virtual projectteam.

So how can this work in the productively lazy way? Can

So how can this work in the productively lazy way? Canyou be lazy with a virtual team?

We all know about the Tuckman-defined team phases –forming, storming, norming and performing (and, thesedays, mourning: the experience of leaving a good team atthe close). If you don’t, there is plenty of information onthe topic out there in the online world.

For virtual teams the forming part works pretty much asit does for any team. Resources are identified and thereyou have a team. Some members will be happy andothers less so.

It starts getting tricky just after that. The storming phaseis important in preparing the team for working together,resolving character imbalances, sorting out territorialissues and generally getting everyone knowing everyoneelse. Now, without a face-to-face session (or two, orthree) this will be very challenging, and so you have tocompensate somehow. At this time decisions won’tcome easily within the group and team members will nodoubt vie for position as they attempt to establishthemselves in relation to other members. Clarity ofpurpose increases, but plenty of uncertainties will persist.Typically cliques and factions form and there may bepower struggles. The team needs to be focused on itsgoals to avoid becoming distracted by relationships andemotional issues. Compromises may well be required toenable real progress.

In a virtual situation a lot of these issues can be hiddenso, as the leader, you almost have to force the matter. Itis also very easy to jump to a wrong conclusion about afellow team member, apply stereotypical attributes andmiss tensions hidden by the reduced communicationprocess and lack of physical visibility of how people areactually behaving.

If at all possible make the investment in a ‘hothouse’ faceto face. By this I mean an intensive, almost 24/7, five-dayteam experience. Use an external facilitator to drive thestorming process harder and faster to a conclusion.Make the business case that this is an investment, nomatter how significant, and it will pay off. If this isfinancially impossible then you may just have to acceptthat the storming phase will be longer than usual.


And not only that, can you even make a whole team lazyor can it only apply to the lazy project manager? Can ateam also be made more productive in a lazy way?

Absolutely! In fact, being a lazy project managerdemands that you share the knowledge with your projectteam and teach them how to work in this way.

For example, in communications I talk about theimportance of allowing yourself time to focus andconcentrate. I note that the open door policy is good butthat there are times when you, as the project manager,and your team should feel it acceptable to take time outand not get distracted by other matters.


Right, so the lazy have won the day and worlddomination through productive laziness is now ours.Hurrah!

What next? Where else should we place our efforts toimprove the future of project management and project

improve the future of project management and projectsuccess in general? And once we are all lazy, what next?

Well, let me introduce you to what I call the Campaignfor Real Project Sponsors.

Critical to any project’s success is having a good projectmanager, as we all know, but after that it is prettyimportant to have a good project sponsor. However, asthe saying goes, ‘you can pick your friends but you can’tpick your relatives’ – and the same is true of projectsponsors.

Let’s look at the job specification – what exactly is aproject sponsor supposed to do? Well, theresponsibilities for project sponsors typically includethese:

• Providing direction and guidance for strategies andinitiatives.• Negotiating funding for the project.• Actively participating in the initial project planning.• Identifying project steering committee members.• Working with the project manager to develop theproject charter.• Identifying and quantifying business benefits to beachieved by successful implementation of the project.• Reviewing and approving changes to plans, priorities,deliverables, schedule, etc.• Gaining agreement among the stakeholders whendifferences of opinion occur.• Assisting the project when required (especially in an‘out of control’ situation) by exerting their organizationalauthority and ability to influence.• Assisting with the resolution of inter-project boundaryissues.• Chairing the project steering committee.• Supporting the project manager in conflict resolution.• Making the project visible in the organization.

• Making the project visible in the organization.• Encouraging stakeholder involvement, and building andmaintaining their ongoing commitment through effectivecommunication strategies.• Advising the project manager of protocols, politicalissues, potential sensitivities, etc.• Evaluating the project’s success on completion.

OK, that’s a nice list – but do we really have goodproject sponsors out there, people who work in harmonywith project managers the world over?

THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE CONFUSED

To answer that we need to look in more detail at whatmakes a good project sponsor.

The project sponsor is the key stakeholderrepresentative for the project and provides the necessarysupport for the project manager, with the primaryresponsibility for achievement of the project’s objectivesand benefits. An inappropriate choice of project sponsorcan seriously impact the possibility of success of theproject and provide you, the project manager, with anunwanted additional overhead.

Now, you can’t practically ask a sponsor for a CV2 andput them through a formal interview process – nice as itwould be sometimes to utter the phrase ‘I’m sorry but Ijust don’t think that this is the job for you right now.’However, a potentially bad project sponsor will exhibitsome or all of the following behaviours.

To be a successful partner in your project, they need tobe connected to you – the project manager – and to theproject team; if they are remote, then that is a red flag forsure. And if they are too busy to meet, to discuss and tooffer aid, then that paints that flag an even darker shadeof red. If they avoid helping in the assignment of project

of red. If they avoid helping in the assignment of projectroles and responsibilities and never have time to approvedocuments promptly, then you have a problem that isreaching critical status. Throw in a dash of blaminganyone but themselves for any problems – and it isprobably time to walk away. You are in real trouble, andso is your project. A bad sponsor is potentially yourworst nightmare.

Conversely, a good project sponsor will behave in theopposite way in these areas. A good sponsor will happilyact as advisor to the project manager and will focus onremoving obstacles in the path of project success.

All this is well and good – but to be truly fair to projectsponsors around the world, how have they managed togain this position of importance and how have thecompanies for which they worked supported them in thiscritical activity?

Let the campaign begin.

It is said that a project is one small step for a projectsponsor and one giant leap for the project manager.Wouldn’t you feel so much better if you knew that theproject sponsor’s one small step made sure that yourgiant leap offered you a safe and secure final landing?

It’s been my experience that the skill profile of projectmanagers continues to grow and more and moreorganizations are developing project managers in adisciplined and mature manner. But the same cannot besaid of all project sponsors; many wrongly believe thatthe project sponsor is just a figurehead, someone who isnever called to active duty.

How wrong. How very wrong.

There is a lack of personal development support and

There is a lack of personal development support andsources of information and guidance for project sponsorsand it is needed urgently, I believe. And so I would liketo launch my Campaign for Real Project Sponsors,where we see real investment in anyone who acts in sucha key role.


You may have noticed my small rant in The LazyProject Manager about communicating. Well, here isanother one.

TEXTING IS NOT COMMUNICATING – ANDNEITHER IS REPORTING

I do text – but only very occasionally. Others (and I willmention no names or relationship to the author to protectthe guilty!) text all the time.

There is something very frustrating and excluding whenyou are with someone and their mobile phone goes beepbeep (or something even worse). The other person stopswhat they are doing instantly – in mid-conversation,sometimes – and picks up the phone, reads the text,laughs, enters a reply text, sends it, puts the phone downagain and … says nothing at all about the communicationreceived. And, what is worse, you may have justresumed your conversation when the reply to the reply ofthe original text comes beeping in…

If someone interrupts you then you hear what they sayand the experience is shared. If a phone is answered youat least hear one side of the conversation and it isaccepted that you may ask questions about the callafterwards. But if a mobile phone alerts the owner that atext has arrived you are pretty much outside the

text has arrived you are pretty much outside thecommunication loop. Communication, proper andeffective communication, requires a lot more.

I really don’t want to get too technical here but, simplyput and just so that you have a basic understanding, hereis a summary:

There is a source – someone/something sending out theinformation.

There is the medium – this is the means by which theinformation is sent. Maybe this is spoken or electronic(email, fax, web, etc.) or through the telephone; maybe itis paper based (letter, poster, memo, sticky note, etc.); itcould be an image or something else visual or a sound. Itcan actually be silent – through a look, a smell, bodylanguage, colours or the arrangement of text (numbers orletters).

Then we have what is known as the receiver –someone/something that is receiving the information.

And the final part of the process is feedback. The sourcewill not know whether the communication that has beensent has been successfully received unless somefeedback is received (some action or change inbehaviour).

OK. On top of all that, there are many barriers toovercome when communicating.

If the means of communication is too simple then there isa higher risk that the message will not be understoodcorrectly, and I suspect many of us have mistaken themeaning of a text or short email at least once. And if themeans of communication is too complex then again themessage can be lost – or potentially never discovered inthe first place.

the first place.

As I mentioned in The Lazy Project Manager, I wastaught a truth in my early project management days:reporting is not communicating. The fact that the criticalfacts and important truths are buried somewhere in areport which the right people may be in possession ofdoes not, in any way, mean that they have actuallyreceived the message.

So carrying on texting but do take care. OMG LOL …


OK, rant over. Forgive me. Let’s get back to the funside of things, shall we, for some light relief?

MORE FUN IN A DAY’S WORK

One of the most popular parts of the Lazy ProjectManager in the presentations that I do is the ‘all in a funday’s work’ section. It seems that many of us haveforgotten to have fun in what we do.

And so here are a few more humorous suggestions andideas and thoughts – and, yes, these are not original butare collected from the web, so my thanks to whoeverreally is the originator of such snippets of fun.

• ‘The nicest thing about not planning is that failure comesas a complete surprise and is not preceded by a periodof worry and depression.’ John Harvey Jones

• A risk is something nasty you smell and an issue issomething nasty you stand in.

• It takes one woman nine months to have a baby. Itcannot be done in one month by impregnating nine

cannot be done in one month by impregnating ninewomen.

• Any project can be estimated accurately (once it’scompleted).

• The most valuable and least used word in a projectmanager’s vocabulary is ‘no’.

• The most valuable and least used phrase in a projectmanager’s vocabulary is ‘I don’t know’.

• Nothing is impossible for the person who doesn’t haveto do it.

• Too few people on a project can’t solve the problems;too many create more problems than they solve.

• A user will tell you anything you ask about, but nothingmore.

• Right answers to wrong questions are just as wrong aswrong answers to right questions.

• What you don’t know hurts you.

• There’s never enough time to do it right first time butthere’s always enough time to go back and do it again.

• Anything that can be changed will be changed untilthere is no time left to change anything.

• Change is inevitable – except from vending machines.

• The person who says it will take the longest and costthe most is the only one with a clue how to do the job.

• The bitterness of poor quality lingers long after thesweetness of meeting the date is forgotten.

• What is not on paper has not been said.

• If you don’t know where you’re going, any road willtake you there.

• If you fail to plan you are planning to fail.

• When all’s said and done a lot more is said than done.

• The more you plan the luckier you get.

• A project gets a year late one day at a time.

• Everyone asks for strong project managers, but whenthey get them they don’t want them.

• If there is a 50% chance of something going wrongthen, nine times out of ten, it will.

• You can tell a man is clever by his answers – you cantell a man is wise by his questions.

And one final note of caution – understand clearly what isbeing asked of you:

A young project manager was leaving the office aftera long day when he found the CEO standing in frontof a shredder with a piece of paper in his hand.

‘Listen,’ said the CEO ‘This is a very sensitive andimportant document, and my secretary is not here.Can you make this thing work?’

‘Certainly,’ said the young project manager in aconfident tone. He turned on the shredder, insertedthe paper, and pressed the start button.

‘Excellent, excellent,’ said the CEO as his paperdisappeared inside the machine. ‘I just need the one

disappeared inside the machine. ‘I just need the onecopy.’


As readers of the Lazy books will know, I do like toprovide some useful tools for people to apply in theirown workplaces. Here’s one that I prepared earlier.

THE COST OF CHANGE

You will need to create some change worksheets – thesewill just be plain pieces of paper with a header printedthat says ‘Change Worksheet’. Print these out, portraitlayout, with the header at the top. You will also needsome pens for the students plus a pink marker (or one ofa similarly unusual colour) for yourself.

Hand out one sheet per student (you can joke that theseare very expensive pieces of paper as you do this) andthen…

Explain that each sheet costs ten euros (or dollars /pounds / currency of your choice) but you will pay themtwenty euros to complete the task.

1. Ask them to write their name on the piece ofpaper at the bottom right – as the sheets have aheader reading ‘Change Worksheet’ they willassume it’s OK to use the paper in portrait format.

2. Ask them to draw a large circle in the middle ofthe paper.

3. State that you meant that the piece of papershould be laid out landscape style and not portrait –apologize for any misunderstanding. Ask them to doit again if they got it wrong (most will have done so)

it again if they got it wrong (most will have done so)with a new piece of paper, but remember that itcosts them ten euros. But that is OK as they willbreak even if they get it right from now on…

4. Hand out the new paper. Let everyone catch upto step 3 again – you will get some questions now,challenging what you are saying and requestingclarification on your ‘specification’ – and thendouble check that everyone has completed steps 1and 2 correctly.

5. Now, innocently, state that below their names,which they had written at the bottom right, you needthe date added in the same size writing. Check thateveryone left enough room for this – if not theyshould start again.

6. If they did leave enough room and managed tocomplete step 5, then state that their name shouldbe in capital letters. If it isn’t, apologize and askthem to start again with a new piece of paper. Sincemany will now be on their third piece of paper offerthem an increase in fee to forty euros, but point outthat costs will also have to go up and any additionalpieces of paper after this one will cost twenty euroseach.

7. For clarity draw up on a flip chart, in any colourother than your special pink (or whatever colouryou have chosen) exactly what you are looking for– some people will typically ask for date formatclarification. Cheerfully answer every question thatthey may have.

8. Hand out the new paper and wait, and then ask ifeveryone is happy now and if everyone is up todate.

9. Now ask them to colour the circles in a brightpink as you have just decided that this is a nicecolour and would fit in with your office decor(hopefully there should be no such pens available;explain that such pens can be purchased from anoutside supplier at the cost of a hundred euros).

10. Any takers?

11. There will be none and you can end the shortexercise.

Debrief

Ask the group what went wrong. Their answers shouldbe a clear statement of requirement at the start, and thata way to control changes as the exercise progressedshould have been agreed. You can also highlight the pointthat changes cost more the later they occur in a projectlifecycle.


And, yes, I’m bringing you back to the key activity ofcommunicating in the right and proper way on a project.

Bad communication leads to misunderstanding and errorsand all of that leads to extra work and delays. Neither ofwhich are good for you or the project.

MORE ON COMMUNICATING

When I ran a PMO one of the activities that weundertook was to complete audits of the projects – well,the big projects at least – towards the end of the planphase of our methodology. Actually, they were originally

phase of our methodology. Actually, they were originallycalled ‘Audits’ but that word scares people a lot and sowe rebranded and called them ‘Health Checks’ – awarm and friendly phrase, and people generally acceptedthem a whole lot more than the dreaded Audit. As aresult of running many of these health checks we wereable to identify some common issues or challenges thatour projects faced time and time again. And one of thesewas in the area of communication.

100% of projects had a communication plan in place:excellent.

But many, many projects – when we ran the health checksome three or four months into the project delivery cycle– had never, ever updated the communication plan fromday one of the project!

How can that be? Surely, what they knew of people andthe project must have changed from the very start? Imean, on all projects there must, for example, be anincrease in the level of trust as the team gets to knoweach other and this alone must impact the type ofcommunication put in place. For instance, take theproject sponsor. If you have never worked togetherbefore and discuss how best to communicate with eachother then, based on the lack of trust and relationship atthe time, you will perhaps agree to a two-hour meeting inthe office each Friday. But think: three months down theline, when you have worked together and know eachother so much better, is it still productive to spend twohours every Friday in the office? Probably not, I wouldsay. And so you should adjust the communication planaccordingly – it is, and should be, a living document.

I once worked with a great project manager. This personrepresented the customer and I was the supplier projectmanager. It was a long journey to site and, once we werethree or four months into the project and had got to

three or four months into the project and had got toknow and trust each other, the regular meetings weremanaged as follows. If there were no issues that I wasaware of, then the customer’s project manager was veryhappy for me to turn up on site and brief them over a cupof coffee before we walked over to the meeting. But ifthere were problems I was expected to arrive first thing(or the day before, or whatever was necessary) to fullybrief and prepare us for the meeting. There was aflexibility and trust in place that benefited both of us andmade optimum use of our valuable time.

Think about your communication plan. When was the lasttime you updated it? How accurate and relevant is itnow? And how can you make communication moreeffective on your project?

More on productive laziness

Another key skill I think the most successful projectmanagers have is the ability to present well.

And by that I don’t just mean the ability to stand up infront of a group of people with a PowerPointpresentation and ‘deliver the goods’. I mean that theyknow how and when it is important to step up a gear andpresent their projects in the best possible light throughwhatever means is relevant; through conversation, at ameeting, at a presentation, in a workshop or even justover a simple cup of coffee.

PRESENTATION COUNTS

I was recently in a restaurant in a foreign land (wellforeign to me of course but less so to the locals).

The location was good, the décor and ambience very

The location was good, the décor and ambience veryacceptable, the company most enjoyable, and the snowfell softly outside providing a winter wonderland visualdelight through the large windows.

But sadly all of that positive build-up for a greatevening’s dining was almost outweighed by the food andservice.

After an initial ordering experience the diners elected toeat the same main course but each agreed that the chef’svegetable of choice for the evening was not to theirpersonal liking. It was the humble Brussels sprout, amember of the brassica family that enjoys a somewhattarnished image which, considering its status as anutritional power house, is perhaps a little unfair. Itsreputation is perhaps mostly due to the great BritishChristmas Day cooking technique: take sprouts, cut, trim,boil until at least twice dead and then for five minutesmore. Then, finally, pile into a large dish and leave –because nobody actually likes Brussels sprouts (at leastnot cooked this way).

Anyway the request was made to replace said evilvegetable with an alternative, and asparagus tips wererequested. And so the meal continued through amediocre appetizer until the main course finally arrived… without Brussels sprouts (the good news) but alsowithout anything in their place as requested (the badnews).

The waiter was recalled and cajoled and encouraged toresolve this rapidly, at which the staff applied all of theirskills and training, by ignoring us and disappearing.Eventually after a long period, during which most of themeal was consumed, the waiter did reappear andproceeded to almost, but not quite, save the entiresituation.

With a silver platter and a silver fork of delicateproportions the waiter proceeded to ceremoniously, andwith great flourish, place two small asparagus tips acrossthe centre of each diner’s remaining half-eaten meal. Itwas theatrical and exaggerated and, had it not been forthe sheer humour of the whole thing, he may just have gotaway with it. Presentation can win the day.

There is an old story about a crisis in a company when itwas discovered that one of their products was actuallykilling customers. This was a major issue and one thatdelivered headlines that were very bad news for thecompany. However a savvy and spirited marketingexecutive quickly went to work to resolve the situation.After a few days of bad publicity and press, with thedeath toll mounting, the marketeer launched a major fightback.

The first press release read ‘Company X extremelyconcerned for its customers…’

Sadly the problems continued and more customers mettheir maker as a result of the killer products. The badpublicity continued and the situation looked desperate.

The marketing executive did not walk away from thechallenge nor did he give up the battle. He worked lateinto the night thinking blue sky thoughts about a solutionto this issue and finally came up with a plan.

The next day a press release was delivered to the worldat large that simply read ‘Company X sees a massivereduction in dissatisfied customers…’

It is all in the presentation and in turning negatives in topositives.

Our waiter tried but just failed; he couldn’t carry it off

Our waiter tried but just failed; he couldn’t carry it offcompletely and is probably from Barcelona anyway (yesthat is a Fawlty Towers reference and not an insult towonderful Barcelona, one of my favorite cities).

As a project manager you have to be calm, confident,assured and in control at all times. There will be timeswhen you need to recover from sticky situations and onthose occasions you need to have the skill to find thepositive and the will to present it convincingly.

Presentation counts.

One last piece of productive laziness

And so on to the ‘one last word’.

But, before that, I think a short reality check is in order.This is supposed to be a ‘lazy’ book and so, in myexperience, this should definitely include all of thefollowing hallmarks of one of my books:

• Include high levels of humour – check.• Not be too long – check.• Be therefore useful – check.• Have appendices for more information – check.• Have footnotes – oops, not doing so well on thisone…3

ONE LAST WORD…

And finally, as I ease my way out of the comfy chair inorder to make another cup of tea, some words ofencouragement.

My advice to all of you project managers is this: it is afantastic time to be a project manager. And I am quitejealous that this didn’t exist when I was young – just

jealous that this didn’t exist when I was young – justmake the most out of the fabulous network that is outthere. There are so many people who are blogging aboutproject management and who are writing about projectmanagement. There have never been so many booksbefore, never so many sources of great inspiration andadvice.

There are wonderful communities of people on LinkedIn,Twitter and Facebook and there are so many ways inwhich it is possible to connect with people. I have beenamazed and thankful for how easy this is. People willreally try to help you. On top of that there are somefantastic podcasts. There is the PM Podcast for example,and the PMO Podcast is another example; you can listento these and many others, including my own free podcaston iTunes (The Lazy Project Manager). I am also excitedto be part of a new initiative called the PM Book Club,where a series of project management authors engageonline with readers to discuss their books.

I would really recommend that all of you, if you haven’tdone so already, spend some time looking out there, andreaching out to that wonderful network of people. Trustme – it will be well worth the small amount of effort. As astart I am completely happy to accept invitations from allof you on LinkedIn – so send one out today and I willaccept without delay.

Pleasure in the job puts perfection in thework.

Aristotle

1 It has been pointed out to me that being new to project managementdoesn’t necessarily mean that you are young, a fair point, and wellmade – thank you, David Corfan.

2 A résumé, also spelled resumé or resume, also called curriculum vitaeor CV, is a document that contains a summary or listing of relevant

or CV, is a document that contains a summary or listing of relevantjob experience and education. The résumé or CV is typically thefirst item that a potential employer encounters regarding a jobseeker and is typically used to screen applicants, often followed byan interview, when seeking employment.

3 A note is a string of text placed at the bottom of a page in a book ordocument or at the end of a text. The note can provide an author’scomments on the main text or citations of a reference work insupport of the text, or both. A footnote is normally flagged by asuperscripted number immediately following that portion of the textthe note is in reference to. The first idea being referenced 1 for thefirst footnote on the page, the second idea being referenced 2 for thesecond footnote, and so on.

Occasionally a number between brackets or parentheses isused instead, thus: [1]. Typographical devices such as theasterisk (*) or dagger (†) may also be used to point to footnotes;the traditional order of these symbols is *, †, ‡, §, ||, ¶.[1]. Indocuments like timetables many different symbols, as well asletters and numbers, may be used to refer the reader to particularnotes.

‘Footnotes’ are notes at the foot of the page while‘Endnotes’ are collected under a separate heading at the end of achapter in a book or a document. Unlike footnotes, endnoteshave the advantage of not affecting the image of the main text,but may cause inconvenience to readers who have to move backand forth between the main text and the endnotes. (The U.S.Government Printing Office Style Manual devotes over twopages to the topic of footnotes.)

2Project superstars

In which we congratulate all of you out there in projectmanagement land for the fantastic job that you are doing.

Welcome to the dark side

I have had the privilege and the pleasure of attendingmany of the major project management conferences

many of the major project management conferencesaround the world, both as an attendee and as a speaker,and I always enjoy myself. The networking, meeting oldfriends and acquiring new ones, the sharing of ideas andenthusiasm for our profession and the general buzz ofexcitement that can be found at these events is also wellworth the effort (and the cost) of attending.

But there is another side to all this – the dark side, if youlike.

When we gather in these vast hotel and conferencecentres what is it really like? What do the people outsideour profession think of us (if anything)?

The shadow people

They came in ones and twos. Some came in largergroups. They came by air, by road, by rail and byfoot. They emerged from the shadows and they cameto the place.

The place that had been told in many tongues and inmany ways to be the place that they had to be. Andthey came willingly and with a hope for great things.

And when they had arrived at the place they markedthemselves with the badge of membership, with thecodes and symbols of belonging, with the authority ofthe whole and with the assurance of being as one.

The ones had become twos and the twos had becomemore and the more became the mass, until finally themass entered the inner sanctum.

Here there was a quiet, a reverence and a respect.Their tones were hushed as they waited for the high

Their tones were hushed as they waited for the highleader to begin the ceremony. The light in the roomwas darkened save for the single source ofknowledge, the beacon that was the altar ofcommunication.

Here the leader rose and faced the congregation.

The leader was measured by experience and scarredby years and charged with the keep of the greatbook. For in this book the shadow people placed allof their hope.

Outside the world moved on not knowing of theexistence of the secret people. Outside the safe placeno one knew their name, nor their purpose.

But inside the faith was absolute. They knew theirname and they knew well their purpose.

The leader raised his arm and the secret peoplemoved as one and began to worship at the altar ofthe great god [Insert the Project Methodology ofyour choice here].

THE OUTSIDE WORLD LOOKING IN

It is all well and good convening these wonderfulconferences and congresses, and each one is bigger andbetter than the last, but more importantly we all need toconnect to the outside world and tell them what being aproject manager means and what great work we all do.

We shouldn’t be the ‘shadow people’ who only speakamong ourselves. This plays an important part, for sure,but we need to widen our connection and speak to allabout the realities and wonders of great projectmanagement.

Hail the project superstar

Hail the project superstar

This is the key question: How many people know whatyou do?

Beyond your fellow project managers and outside yourclose family, who really understands what ‘being aproject manager’ is all about? Possibly even your closefamily wave you goodbye each day as you head off towork without really understanding what you actually do.

Taking project management out of the box will spreadthe word outside our community about what a greatbunch of people we really are and how projectmanagement is a valuable skill to pretty much everybody.We should appreciate how we are seen from ‘outside’our project world, and understand which of our manyskills others would value.

I want to shout to the world about project managementand tell all the great work that I and my fellow projectmanagers do, but is the world listening?

Introduction

What is a project manager, or put it another way, whatare you? What do you do between 9.00 a.m. and 5.00p.m. each working day (and that is on a very goodworking day)?

The web has a number of definitions of what a projectmanager is:• A project manager is a professional in the field ofproject management.• The person with authority to manage a project.• The person responsible for the project.• An individual or body with authority, accountability andresponsibility for managing a project to achieve specificobjectives.

objectives.• The individual in charge of the progress andperformance of the project on behalf of the projectowner.• The individual accountable for all aspects of a project.

And here are a few more:

• A person who thrives on a challenge.• A person who defies the 9 to 5 routine.• A person not afraid of leading.• A person not afraid of risk.• A person who wants to make a difference.• A person who likes people.• A person who manages projects (successfully).

Test

Try this quick and easy test. Find a project manager, pinthem in a corner so that they can’t escape and ask twosimple questions (and demand a fast answer in return toboth questions). The chances are that this will happen:

Question: ‘What do you do at work?’Answer: ‘I am a project manager.’

Question: ‘What is it that you do?’Answer: ‘I, er … I, er … manage projects.’

So not a great deal of enlightenment there, then – but, tobe fair, it is hard to define, isn’t it? How do we describeto other people, people outside our closed world, exactlywhat we do and why what we do is so important? Andhow do we make it all sound exciting (unlike the abovedefinitions), because it is exciting, isn’t it?

And it is important. How important?

‘With one-fifth of the world’s GDP being spent on

projects this year clearly business isn’t just aboutoperations anymore. Competitiveness, innovation, talent– these are the things you’re worrying about every day’(PMI New World of Business).

That, by the way, is about $12 trillion, and that is reallyimportant.

How important?

The whole world is challenged, that is for sure. On theone hand, we have faced the global recession, with all theimpact that this has had on people and business, and onthe other we are a dynamic, resourceful and ever-evolving world that demands change as part of itssurvival. And change demands projects, and projectsdemand project managers.

While we can all produce evidence of project successwithin our own sphere of experience, we do have torecognize a history littered with significant project failureas well. The Standish Report regularly shows that wemay not always learn from our experiences and thathistory may well be repeated in many cases.

Now is the time that it is even more critical to succeed,and succeed with a higher level of certainty than seenbefore – since those projects that will be commissionedin the future, as well as the ones that are allowed tocontinue in the current climate, will be expected to deliverhigher business impact, be under closer scrutiny fromsenior management and be under far more pressure tosucceed. And guess what, guess who will be the personthat is under the most pressure? The project manager.

Very important?

So it seems that we, the project managers of the world,are pretty important in the scheme of things. Mostly not

are pretty important in the scheme of things. Mostly not‘life or death’ important, but still important enough. Sowhy does it remain so difficult to explain to outsiderswhat we do? A good statement to remember here isperhaps this one: ‘project management is a verb, not anoun’.

THE IMPORTANCE OF PROJECTMANAGEMENT (AND THEREFORE YOU)

Can you name three famous project managers? If youwere asked this question you might well lean towards anumber of areas:

• Science and art: Leonardo da Vinci• Engineering: Isambard Kingdom Brunel• Manufacturing: Henry Ford• Military: Attila the Hun• Cultural: Nelson Mandela

On the other hand, you might not.

Brunel stated ‘I am opposed to the laying down of rulesor conditions to be observed in the construction ofbridges lest the progress of improvement tomorrow mightbe embarrassed or shackled by recording or registeringas law the prejudices or errors of today.’ So he was nofan of rigid discipline, but rather of allowing for innovationand development.

Da Vinci said ‘Art is never finished, only abandoned.’ Sonot exactly in line with our project closure theory.

Ford declared ‘I am looking for a lot of men who havean infinite capacity to not know what can’t be done.’Again a very open and flexible approach is desired.

Attila the Hun probably came up with some great quotes– maybe ‘******, attack, kill, invade, *****!’ – but we

– maybe ‘******, attack, kill, invade, *****!’ – but wedon’t have those recorded for posterity.

But why even try to name three famous projectmanagers? Well, to demonstrate that most of the namesthat you will come up will be famous for other matters,and not project management pure and simple.

I know we could probably name three. I would perhapssuggest Dr Harold Kerzner (IIL), Dr David Hillson (RiskDoctor), and Frank Saladis (International ProjectManagement day founder), and I could certainly add tothat list,4 as I am sure you could as well – but the point isthat outside project management these people areunknown. No one within our project world has yet beenuniversally recognized in this day and age. It is all aboutthe project and not the project manager. Even the LazyProject Manager (www.thelazyprojectmanager.com)has not yet reached that level of fame.

Does everybody ‘do’ project management these days,then? Perhaps it is because project management is just acommodity? Maybe everybody does do projectmanagement now…

We know that project management is fast becoming thepreferred way for companies to get things done. In aglobal economy, project management will make acompany more competitive than the traditional methodsof managing work.

So for all managers there is now the need to understandthe dynamics of projects together with the skill andprocess of project management (as a verb) in order tomake the most out their organization’s investments.

THE QUESTION

Is project management therefore no longer a niche

Is project management therefore no longer a nichecapability, the home of project management officemembers and external contractors? Is it now a core skillthat all executives and senior management need tounderstand?

I recently conducted a survey through a LinkedIn survey(poll) when that very question was asked – ‘Is projectmanagement a core skill and no longer a nichecapability?’ – to see what a wider community of businesspeople thought.

Some 347 people responded to the survey and I amgrateful for their time and consideration, as well as thefollow-up comments that many of them left for me toreview. These respondents were a good mix of the sexesand ages and came from across all business areas, jobroles and titles.

THE ANSWER(S)

In the overall results there was a fairly even split between‘a core skill’ at 42% and ‘both a core skill and a nichecapability’ at 37%, with a smaller number believing that itis ‘a niche capability’ – some 19% (there was a 2%community of ‘don’t do project management’). But Iguess it would be fair to say that the survey contributorswere divided in their views – and strongly divided insome cases, based on the comments exchanged.

The respondents’ sex played no part in these results withan almost identical view from both men and women, andjob title seemed to influence the results only in a smallway. Age played the most significant part. The majorityof respondents were in the 25 to 54 age range, and theyounger the person the more likely it was that there wasa belief that project management was a core skill and thenon-belief that it was a niche capability.

The full results were:

Age 18–24• A core skill – 67%• A niche capability – 0%• Both core and niche – 33%



Age 55+• A core skill – 45%• A niche capability – 45%• Both core and niche – 10%

The most consistent argument that can be made is thatproject management methodology is a core skill which allmanagers need to be aware of, but the actual projectmanagement activity is still a niche capability that requiresadditional training and experience in order to besuccessful.

Managing a small, simple project is no big deal and mostpeople can do it. Managing a large, complex project withsubstantial risk, diverse stakeholders, a geographicallydistributed team, multiple constraints and high stakes isbest reserved for real experts. The successful business ofthe twenty-first century recognizes the value of nicheproject managers working under a supportive executivethat has a foundation of project core skills.

So does that mean that project management should beunderstood by a wider audience than it is today?

WHEN WILL I BE FAMOUS?

It’s magic…

A project manager asks his administrator what twoplus two equals. The administrator states in absoluteterms that two plus two equals four.

The project manager then asks his accountant whattwo plus two equals. The accountant states inrelative terms that two plus two equals four plus orminus.

Finally the project manager asks his projectcontroller what two plus two equals. The projectcontroller turns off the lights, walks over and closesthe blinds, and sits down by the project manager tosay, in a whisper, ‘What do you want it to equal?’

Give a project to a good project manager (supported inall the right ways with sponsorship and resources, etc.),and then magic happens. So why can’t the skills of theproject manager been appreciated by the general public?We should all be famous, if not rich, by now.

Others do it. There is a growing trend in the UK,originating from the US I believe, where children areencouraged to take their parents in to school and get theparents to talk about their jobs. I have never been askedto go in to my children’s school.

They have had a police officer in who, no doubt, talkedabout road safety and not talking to strangers; they havehad a nurse in who talked about healthcare issues andhow to look after yourself; they have had a firefighter in

how to look after yourself; they have had a firefighter into explain about the dangers of fires and what to do ifyou are in such danger. These are all important andseemingly – to children – exciting jobs. But projectmanagement is neither apparently exciting nor does ithave a uniform (something I note that the people whohave gone into the school have in common).

Should we perhaps design a uniform for projectmanagers? We know we are exciting already…

But consider this. We can easily state that ‘doctors makepeople better’, that ‘policemen catch bad people’, that‘builders make homes’, that ‘authors write books’, that‘movie stars make films’ and so on. But we can’t say‘project managers manage projects’ because thatdoesn’t tell people anything. We all know what it means,but my children don’t, and my friends don’t, and JoePublic doesn’t know either.

SO THIS IS WHERE WE ARE…

The current situation can be summarised as follows:

• We are generally good at what we do.• We are generally successful in our endeavours.• We are getting better all the time.• We do deliver ‘exciting things’.• What we do is getting more attention and support.• What we do is being taken seriously.• We are mostly nice people (I’m sure).

So how can we get out of the box and into the spotlightso that the world in general can understand us and whatwe do? It is better than you may think.

Warning: here comes the science bit

Take this easy test – the numbers, no doubt, will changeall the time but these are the results I got when I tried it in

all the time but these are the results I got when I tried it inJune 2011.

• Search online for ‘project failures’ – I got 33 millionhits.• Now search for ‘project success’ – I got 85 millionhits.

Encouraging, wouldn’t you say?

• Search online for ‘sad project manager’ – I got 1.9million hits.• Now search for ‘happy project manager’ – I got 41million hits.

Nice.

And if you happen to search online for ‘nurse’ and then‘firefighter’ and then ‘police officer’ and add the hitstogether – well, I got 96 million hits. But searching for‘project manager’ got me 205 million hits.

Very nice.

Be proud and be happy

So, all in all, we have a lot to be both proud and happyabout; so let’s be proud and happy about it!

Being a project manager is a great job, whether you areintent on pursuing a project management career orwhether you intend to move in to a business role within aproject-based business. Projects should never bore you;they are all different and each day will bring newchallenges and interest. You will never stop learningthose lessons.

FINALLY REACH OUT WITH WHAT YOU DO

Consider doing some or all of the following in order to

Consider doing some or all of the following in order tohelp yourself (and project management in general) out ofthe box:

• Tell people you are a project manager. Don’t be shy;be brave and come clean about your job – you are notdoing anything that you shouldn’t be loud and proud of.

• Have that ‘elevator’ speech ready when people askwhat you do. But whatever you say, don’t say ‘I’m aproject manager, I manage projects.’ I recently asked‘How would you explain project management to an alienfrom outer space?’5 on LinkedIn, and one of myfavourite answers came from Penny Pullman: ‘Gettingsomething new and exciting done with a group ofpeople!’ (You’ll find a collection of my favouriteresponses in the Appendices to this book.)

• Speak at non-project management events. In my roleas the Lazy Project Manager I have started, more andmore, to speak to groups of people outside projectmanagement, and you know what? They like what theyhear about projects and project management (andproject managers).

• Network with a broad group of people, again outsideproject management.

• Start LinkedIn discussions such as my ‘alien’ one;you’ll get some great interaction with people from allover the world.

• Tweet and blog as much as you can. Use Facebookand any and every social networking mechanism thatworks for you. Connect and communicate with thewidest possible audience.

• Offer your services outside your work. You will findthat many volunteer organizations are crying out for your

that many volunteer organizations are crying out for yourproject skills – even if they don’t know what they are.

• Finally, why not scare your kids and go to that schoolor college day and talk about the exciting role of being aproject manager?

YOU ARE A ‘PM SUPERSTAR’ – I SALUTE YOU!

I still want to shout to the world about projectmanagement and tell everyone about all the great workthat we do, and I want you to join me in that shouting –be loud and very proud of what you do. It is bothessential and exciting. Taking project management out ofthe box will spread the word outside our communityabout what a great bunch of people we are and howproject management is a valuable skill to pretty mucheverybody.

You are a PM Superstar (definition: ‘someone who isdazzlingly skilled in any field’) so not only get out of thatbox, but climb up and stand on it while you let everyoneknow just what you do and what you are. You are aproject manager.

Be proud and be loud (or at least don’t be shy…)

If you’re going through hell, keep going.

Winston Churchill

4 I hope that you recognize that I overcame the almost overwhelmingurge to add the Lazy Project Manager to that list… and here I justfailed in resisting that urge. I am weak…

5 You can read the article in the Appendices.

3The project from hell

The project from hell

In which you learn exactly what the Project from Hellworkshop is all about, why it could be a valuable tool foryou and your organization, and how to run oneyourselves (or get some help).

Introduction

WELCOME TO THE PROJECT FROM HELL

You have either reached this third part from parts 1 or 2,or you have dipped in directly to see what the Projectfrom Hell is all about. Both routes are absolutely fine.

You may be an experienced project professional, astudent, or a senior line manager or director involved inproject sponsorship, business change or strategicalignment. In any case, welcome – and depending onyour role and learning objectives, please continue throughthis introduction to understand the positioning andobjectives of the Project from Hell. The detail follows inthe rest of this section.

WHAT IS THE PROJECT FROM HELL?

The Project from Hell is to do with projects, and it’s nota nice place to be. It’s about a project that has goneseriously wrong. The task is clear: from the informationprovided, can you (and your team) analyze the problemsand prepare an improvement plan that would be the basisfor rescuing the project or ensuring that such problemsdo not occur again?

The Project from Hell is a failing project. In this booksubstantial information is provided about the Project from

substantial information is provided about the Project fromHell including its background, start-up, progress andevents. It’s important to understand that this one projectis based on experiences across many projects. We alsorefer to the project information as ‘case study material’from which a half day or a full day workshop has beendevised to rescue the Project from Hell. The workshop isteam based, interactive, and with a ‘learning by doing’,‘experiential learning’6 and gaming simulation approachto project success and failure factors.

In its standard format, the project is an IT project withgeneral applicability – so you don’t have to be an ITexpert or a project professional to benefit. Please take awide view of the project, as it could be a marketingcampaign, a new product introduction or any otherproject-based activity. The authors each have more thantwenty-five years project management experience whichhas formed the basis for this real world case study.

The purpose of the Project from Hell, in book orworkshop format, is to provide a description of a projectthat fails as a basis for learning what causes this failureand how to avoid or mitigate these causes. The Projectfrom Hell is a rich seam of real project events describedin non-technical terms to the benefit of individuals andteams involved in or responsible for project or project-type activity. Additionally, the Project from Hell isindependent of any specific project methodology.

WHY IS THE PROJECT FROM HELL COMBINEDWITH THE LAZY PROJECT MANAGER?

The first part of this book provides the practical,pragmatic, real world, Lazy Project Manager approachto project success. This third part of the book (whereyou are now) complements and develops this ‘worksmarter and not harder’ approach by providing aplatform around the Project from Hell for experiencing

platform around the Project from Hell for experiencingand analyzing actual project events and progress.

INTERNAL OR EXTERNAL: THE PROJECT FROMHELL WORKSHOP

You may be reading about the Project from Hell forindividual knowledge and personal performanceimprovement, or for a team-based activity. The bookprovides the material for preparing a basic in-houseworkshop, or bringing in an experienced partner todeliver the Project from Hell workshops using gamingmaterials.

WORKSHOP OUTLINE

So far we have learned that the Project from Hell is thename of a troubled project that is the basis for a case-study workshop, subject area project success and failurefactors, for use by both project managementprofessionals but also by others who are involved inprojects or new product introduction though not asproject specialists.

Please continue reading the introduction to themechanics, events and experiences, and the content of aProject from Hell workshop and case study. Having readthis section you can then decide on a path through therest of this part of the book.

THE COMPONENTS OF A PROJECT FROM HELLWORKSHOP

Learning objectives

• What is the requirement, problem, or trigger that hasled to the consideration of running a Project from Hellworkshop or personal improvement programme?• What are the profiles of the potential participants?

• What are the profiles of the potential participants?• Does the standard Project from Hell workshop detailedbelow require customization?

Participant team(s)

The number of participants in a team is typically betweenfour and eight. A smaller team will reduce team-buildingaspects, and having more than eight people may reduceindividual participation. A mix of project knowledge andexperience within a team is fine but ideally you shouldbalance knowledge and experience across teams –especially if you intend to award prizes. The number ofteams is determined by a combination of the number offacilitators, rooms and participants. For example: eightyparticipants, twelve teams, four rooms, four facilitators. Ifthe number of participants is significantly higher werecommend you run a series of parallel independentworkshops.

Workshop information and gaming materials

Each facilitator should have a printed copy of this book,and each team should also have at least one printedcopy. The book’s content provides basic information forthe facilitator to run the workshop, as well as informationfor the participating teams to study the Project from Hellbackground and the Project from Hell project events andprogress. The book also contains suggested templates tosupport the preparation of a team presentation.Alternatively, if an external facilitator is chosen from aProject from Hell accredited training partner, theworkshop will be delivered using professionally printedgame cards and charts.

Facilitator(s)

The Project from Hell workshop is highly participativeand will benefit from one or more facilitators or

and will benefit from one or more facilitators orworkshop leaders. A facilitator should have a goodunderstanding of the subject matter (projectsuccess/failure factors) and the mechanics and processesof the Project from Hell workshop. This book and thewebsite provide global contacts for trained facilitators ifthe external route is to be taken – but, remember, youcan grow your own.

Typically one facilitator can look after one to three teamslocated in a single room, depending on facilitator andparticipant profiles.

Facilities

One or more training or conference rooms will beneeded with one table per team, and preferably with thetables well apart. A separate table is also required for thefacilitator who will need a computer and projector. Eachteam will require a flip chart and easel, and a computer ifteams are going to prepare an electronic presentation,typically in PowerPoint.

THE STAGES OF A PROJECT FROM HELLWORKSHOP

Pre-workshop

Before the workshop itself is run, planning, budget andlogistical activity needs to be carried out, includingmatching your learning objectives against those offeredthrough a Project from Hell workshop, and decidingwhether or not you are going to source your facilitatorsin-house. Even if you are reading this as an individual,without planning a team-based workshop, you shouldconsider your own learning objectives.

Ice-breaker

An ice-breaker is some activity started by a facilitatorwith the objectives of initial team building and warming-up the participants, getting their brains engaged, and thenrelaxed and ready to go. The ice-breaker does not needto relate to the actual subject matter of the mainworkshop, but should be fit for purpose. In particular,are the teams already defined, have the participants in ateam already worked together, and is the duration of theice-breaker appropriate to the overall workshopduration? An example is provided later.

Workshop briefing by facilitator

The facilitator (in the role introduced earlier) introducesthe workshop with a few slides on background,objectives, processes and timing. This book provides asample facilitator presentation.

Teams analyze the Project from Hell information supplied

The information that the teams use to analyze the Projectfrom Hell is organized in this book under sectionscovering background, project start and project progress.

Teams prepare their findings and presentation

In addition to the above information about the Projectfrom Hell, this book provides samples of how findingscould be presented, organized by distinct project stages(e.g. scoping, construction). Flip charts or PowerPointslides are typically used.

A short break should then follow to refresh theparticipants and, in parallel, for facilitators to manage anyreorganization of the facilities needed for thepresentations and closing sessions that follow.

Team presentations

Team presentations

A team presentation deals with the main issues identifiedand what could be done to overcome or mitigate them.Working notes should back up these findings. Thefacilitator(s) should make comments on the presentations,and encourage additional thought and feedback from theteams.

Reflections, prizes and conclusion

‘Reflections’ includes overall findings and collations fromthe facilitators and a question and answer session –dependent on the time available. It should include at leastthe start of comparing the Project from Hellperformance, problems and environment to theparticipants’ own project environment. If prizes are to begiven, then this is the time to do it.

The workshop is completed at this point.

After the workshop

Collation, distribution and review of workshop outputsincluding comparison against learning objectives shouldbe completed after the workshop, and then be sharedwith all the participants.

INTRODUCTION TO THE PROJECT FROM HELL– DETAIL

The Project from Hell detail that follows later isorganized into the following sections.

Ice-breaker

Let’s get engaged, team building and working.

The Project from Hell case study detail

This covers the detailed information that teams need toread and understand as the basis for team analysis andpresentation of the project that is the Project from Hell.

Guide to running the Project from Hell workshop

This includes the introductory facilitator presentation anda separate set of instructions and guidelines on how torun the Project from Hell workshop.

The Project from Hell presentation samples

These are sample team outputs prepared prior to theProject from Hell workshops.

The Project from Hell global support

Support is provided by Dylanmae Limited based in theUK. They were co-designers of the case study andworkshop materials, and have delivered the Project fromHell workshops many times, including outside the UK.Territory Partners are being recruited; for more details,please see www.theprojectfromhell.com.

CONCLUSION

You have now reached the end of the section of thebook that introduces the Project from Hell, and shouldnow have a basic understanding of the Project from Hellincluding:

• What is the Project from Hell, its subject area, usageand purpose?• What does the Project from Hell workshop consist of?

You could test your understanding by preparing to brief acolleague about the Project from Hell and then turn thispage to check what you said against our suggestions.

What is the Project from Hell? Answers

You can compare your personal summary against thefollowing. If you are not quite ready to proceed youmight wish to reread sections of this introduction.

What is the Project from Hell, its subject area, usage andpurpose?

The Project from Hell is both the brand and the projectname of a seriously failing project that requires ananalysis of what caused it to go wrong and adetermination of what corrective action needs to betaken. The Project from Hell exists in book form – thisbook, in fact – and as a workshop. Its subject area isproject management, specifically project success/failurefactors.

The purpose of the Project from Hell, in either book orworkshop format, is to provide a description of a projectthat fails as a basis for learning what causes this failureand how to avoid or mitigate these causes. The Projectfrom Hell information provided is a rich seam of realproject events described in non-technical terms to thebenefit of individuals and teams involved in or responsiblefor project or project-type activity.

The ‘Project from Hell’ is independent of any specificproject methodology, and you can see a typical agendafor a workshop later in this book, in part 5.

What does the Project from Hell workshop consist of?

The Project from Hell workshop has the Project fromHell’s event descriptions at its core and is facilitated forone or more teams by one or more facilitators.Participants learn by doing and experiencing a realproject world. In a workshop, the event descriptions in

project world. In a workshop, the event descriptions inthis book have been further developed as gamingmaterials and may be customized to use client-specificterminology.

THE PROJECT FROM HELL – DETAIL

Ice-breaker

An ice-breaker is a good way to start a workshop inorder to get participants engaged and initiate the team-building process.

A simple example, used successfully by the book’sauthors, is that once participants have been organizedinto teams, each team has to choose a team name. Thiscan be combined with each team member providing theteam with a sixty-second personal profile. In a multi-teamworkshop, offering a prize for the best team name is agood team-building opportunity.

The Project from Hell case study detail

This covers the detailed information that teams need toread and understand as the basis for team analysis andsubsequent presentation of their findings andimprovements. It also includes an introduction to theworkshop by the facilitator.

Facilitator’s introduction (slide show)

Whoever delivers the workshop should start with a briefintroduction, often supported by a short PowerPointpresentation. The following five slides provide anexample. You could further test your understanding ofwhat you will have already read in the introductorysection of The Lazy Project Manager and the Projectfrom Hell by writing out some notes that expand the

from Hell by writing out some notes that expand thebullet points in the following slides.

Slide 1 – overview

• Introduction – < facilitator’s name>• <Training Company Name>• Workshop objectives• What is the Project from Hell?• Project materials• Timing summary

Slide 2 – introduction

• <Training company credentials – for example, or youand your role>• Projects in their business context• Workshop objectives• Understand success/failure factors• Real world, ‘learning by doing’

Slide 3 – your role and mission

• Save the Project from Hell• Divide into teams• Choose a team name• Define what went wrong• Define what should have happened• Present your findings and recommendations

Slide 4 – materials

• Project progress cards• Participant’s guide• Project planning board• Team presentation template

An official training partner will have professionallyproduced materials. If you are running this workshop

produced materials. If you are running this workshopyourself then you will have to produce these yourself, orcontact www.theprojectfromhell.com to source suchmaterials – for instance, the gaming pack.

Slide 5 – timings

• Set out specific and detailed timings for your workshop– reinforce the fact that this workshop is managed undertight time controls.

Participant’s guide

We would like to welcome you all to the Project fromHell workshop. In this participant’s guide you areprovided with background and introductory project startinformation. (NB: where the Project from Hell gamingpack is being used, each participant has this content as abooklet.)

In this workshop you will be introduced to a projectenvironment. The project introduction follows and youwill also receive information (or cards if a gaming pack isbeing used) documenting the progress of the project.You also have a project planning board (included in thegaming pack) that you might find useful to document theproject flow. Your team’s job is to familiarize yourselveswith the project, the people and the processes and toidentify the following items:

• What issues arose in the course of this project?• What project management components or methodscould have been used to avoid these issues?

Before you start reading, please choose a team name. Atthe end of the workshop, each team will need to preparea PowerPoint presentation of their findings andrecommendations to the rest of the group. Thepresentation should list by project stage what tools,

presentation should list by project stage what tools,techniques or methods your team would have adopted toreduce or eliminate the issues.

You are in a workshop project team. The facilitator ishere as your mentor to help you understand theworkshop process and to assist with any proceduralissues.

As we shall see, this project is an IT software one, butyou do not need to be a project or IT expert toparticipate successfully. If you have some experience onother types of project – e.g. new product introduction oreven domestically (moving house, commissioning anextension) – think what worked or didn’t work, andsoon you should find that you know more about projectsthan you thought. Applying common sense and generalmanagement criteria are useful fallbacks!

Your company projects may well be longer, possibly ofseveral years duration, but the same principles apply.Team working is an important aspect of projectperformance so if you find yourself as the team expertthen use your experience wisely – after all, an event mayoccur that makes you unavailable to the team!

You have two hours (including preparation for thepresentation) to

SAVE THE PROJECT FROM HELL

Project background

1. The customer is an established medium-sizedhealthcare company with a three-year growth plan.

2. The customer requires a corporate reportingsystem to replace a set of ad hoc/departmentalsystems and has selected a leading software vendor

systems and has selected a leading software vendorto provide software and services.

3. The customer has a relatively small budget andthe project has to be completed within three monthsof the start date.

4. Only three days of requirements discoverydiscussions took place during the sales effort.

5. The customer wants a traditional style of project(stage by stage completion) but – subject to riskconsiderations and dependency/critical path analysis– will be prepared to sanction, ahead of time, thecarrying out of forward stage tasks.

6. Only out of the box (standard) softwarefunctionality should be configured and used.

7. The solution has to be tested and ready fordepartmental usage at the end of the project.

8. A hundred users are involved; they need to betrained in the vendor’s software products andmethods by the end of the project.

9. The focus is on deployment in one location, sothe scope is pretty well contained.

10. All information on users, training needs and locationlogistics has been supplied by the customer to speedup the implementation time.

Project start

1. The software vendor assigns two consultants and aproject manager to the job to carry out a ‘typical’implementation including database design guidance,vendor software installation and configuration, samplereports, training.

reports, training.

2. On day one the assigned vendor personnel meet forthe first time as a team and they discover, throughreading pre-sales documents, that the customer wassold and expects a ‘flexible, user-driven, multi-levelsolution’ (the customer doesn’t quite know what thiswill do for their company, but expects nothing less asthis is what they were promised through the salesprocess).

3. The customer appoints a project manager who has noexperience with the vendor’s software products andwho is also currently finishing off another unrelatedproject for them.

4. The customer project manager sets up a briefingmeeting for the internal project team and indicates thatthe project objective is to ‘fix’ the current process andduplicate this using vendor software where necessary.

5. The final sales negotiations resulted in the customerpurchasing an initial quantity of the software vendor’sservices (consulting and project management). Thecustomer project manager has a firm idea that this isthe ‘budget’ for the project. The project has beenestimated (before the start) to take three months. Thevendor’s services were significantly discounted duringthe end of quarter sales process.

6. Initially, the vendor’s consultants discover there is noinfrastructure plan in place. There is no additionalequipment on which vendor software can be loaded,configured and tested without disturbing or putting atrisk the current systems and hardware, whichconstitute the current live versions deliveringinformation to the business including the executive andsenior management team. The preliminaryrecommendations for a basic environment haven’t

recommendations for a basic environment haven’tbeen acted on by the customer.

Project progress

Introduction

The project progress cards provide information whichtogether with the participant’s guide form the basis foryour team-based analysis and presentation. If you areusing the Project from Hell games pack this progressinformation is actually provided in a series of cardsorganized into consecutive time periods, and periodicallythe team facilitator will issue project progress cards toyour team during the workshop. In this book the sameinformation is provided.

A: Project progress – weeks 1 to 2

A1. A one day kick-off workshop is conducted and theproject sponsor outlines the project. The team is excited.The customer project manager outlines the approach tomanaging the project – primarily stage by stagecompletion but with certain intermediate dates(milestones) that are critically important. Dependenciesare to be carefully examined and a risk analysis of earlystart of certain forward tasks undertaken. These matterswere not then heard of for some time.

A2. Customer project manager creates a project plan.Unfortunately nobody else gets to see this, but the PMmaintains it faithfully through the first four weeks of theproject.

A3. Everybody begins development. The mood isupbeat.

A4. One consultant discovers that the customer hasnobody with knowledge of the data structures in the

nobody with knowledge of the data structures in thepurchase order processing (POP) system which will be aprimary data source for the corporate reporting system.Unfortunately the POP system is not one of the four orfive well-known POP systems, and so the vendor’ssoftware knowledge network won’t help much.

B: Project progress – weeks 3 to 4

B1. At the vendor project manager’s prompting thecustomer assigns two key business users to be activelyinvolved in the project team. One contributes significantly– understands the objectives and participates in the ‘usecase design’ (i.e. a description of functionality/goals froma user perspective). Unfortunately this user wasn’t part ofthe scoping workshop and now injects new requirementsthat ‘must not be left out’ and which cannot be deliveredout of the box.

B2. At the four-week mark there is some nervousnesswithin the team. Development has encountered significantdata quality issues. The system design has been divertedto include new process requirements that arose toaccommodate requirements of ‘new’ users – people notconsidered in the original scope.

B3. The customer project manager responds byextending the time frame for certain groups of tasks.

B4. The vendor project manager notes that the mood is‘pretty average’.

C: Project progress – weeks 5 to 8

C1. The second key business user has managed to beavailable only 40% of the allotted time, claiming theyhave other work commitments. Six weeks into theproject it is discovered that most tasks assigned to thisteam member have not been completed.

team member have not been completed.

C2. At the seven-week mark the design is complete onlyfor part 1 of the project, and there are still two parts togo. No testing or data validation has been done outsidethe individual developers; no user has seen any outputfrom the system. Most team members are beginning tosense that the project won’t be completed by the targetdate. A further timescale extension seems in order.

C3. In a casual conversation at the coffee machine, theproject sponsor chats to one of the vendor’s consultantsand learns that the deadline is ‘looking shaky’ and issurprised (if not shocked) by this. It seems thatknowledge of issues/problems/delays/changes has notbeen escalated to the sponsor.

C4. The mood is now dropping through the floor.

D: Project progress – weeks 9 to 13

D1. Emergency ‘rescoping’ meetings result in the steeringcommittee (set up at project commencement but whichhad not met due to other commitments) agreeing toextend the deadline by an additional four weeks.

D2. The project sponsor is extremely embarrassed andangry.

D3. The vendor agrees to bear part of the cost of theextension.

D4. At the eleven-week mark designs are largelycompleted and functionality has been reduced throughrescoping.

D5. On initial testing, problems are encountered. Anothertwo weeks are squeezed into the deadline. The vendoragrees to provide additional time free of charge to

agrees to provide additional time free of charge tocompensate the customer for this.

D6. At the end of thirteen weeks, the design seems to besorted.

E: Project progress – week 14 onwards

E1. No data validation has yet been done.

E2. It is decided to combine initial data validation, usertraining and user acceptance testing to reach the newdeadline – now only two weeks away.

E3. The first serious migration test based on live dataruns for eighteen hours and then fails without completion.Something is wrong. Redesigning and reworking takes afurther five days.

E4. At the same time it is discovered that many users ofthe new system are located in other locations; they arenot actually all in the main location where the projectteam are based as the project team was led to believe. Itis also discovered that these users will not come to thecentral location for training due to costs and timecommitments. Logistics dictate that training the onehundred users will now take a minimum of two months,plus there will be additional costs and time for ongoingsupport once they have been trained.

E5. Additional costs now blow the budget further. Datais not yet validated.

E6. The project sponsor calls a halt.

F: Project outcome

F1. The project sponsor is severely embarrassed; theydidn’t get new software solution; didn’t even get aworking system of any sort.

working system of any sort.

F2. A well-connected methodology consultant is broughtin to review the project – and interestingly finds that the‘process was severely flawed’.

F3. The steering committee reviews findings in order todecide whether to continue. The composition of thecommittee has changed, however. Collectively they can’tremember what the original perceived business value inthe project was, and don’t understand suggestions thatthe scope had changed. Their expectations were thesame at the end as they were at the beginning, thoughnobody’s entirely sure of the definition of theirexpectations.

F4. The project is respecified with a heavy-governanceapproach; it is now forecast to be a twelve-monthproject.

F5. The steering committee are now considering theiroptions.

F6. We don’t know where the customer projectmanager is now.

F7. The vendor’s consultants are on help-desk dutiesand the vendor project manager is away on a courselearning project management fundamentals…

Project planning board template

The project planning board may be used optionally todocument activities by project stage using erasable pens.If you are using the Project from Hell games pack, itincludes an A3 project planning board. The projectstages (columns) identified on the board are pre-project,scope, plan, develop and test/implement. As part of thework you will do in preparing to present a summary of

work you will do in preparing to present a summary ofyour findings organized by project stage, you couldrestate some of the provided items of information intorows on the board and join them to other event orprogress items.

The board then is a useful aid to documenting for analysisproject information such as dependencies, cause andeffect and other relationships. An alternative to the boardwould be to use a flip chart which you may or may notchoose to lay out as the project planning board:

Team presentation template

So far, and if you have been reading the Project fromHell detail sequentially, you will have read through all theinputs that a team receives – for example, the facilitator’sintroduction (slide show), participant’s guide and projectprogress cards. You will also have read about theproject planning board which is a working document ateam can use as part of organizing the project informationthat has been provided. Now let’s address how the teampresentation should be structured.

If the workshop is to be conducted for just one teamthen a template can still be used, or the team can decidefor themselves how they are going to present their keyfindings, with supporting detail organized by projectstage. The medium used could be either a flip chart orcomputer based in PowerPoint or Word.

If there are multiple teams involved, then a standardpresentation format (template) is a good basis forcomparing team performance and identifying what sort ofconsensus there may be across all the teams.

HAVE A GO ON YOUR OWN – SAVE THEPROJECT FROM HELL

What has been covered so far is the detail on thebackground, start-up and progress of the Project fromHell plus the team templates to assist the analysis processand the team presentation. In short, all that is needed totry and rescue the Project from Hell.

If you are going to do that you will gain most by applyingthe timings suggested earlier – lock yourself away for atleast half a day and then, as outlined, carry out the tasksnecessary. As a variant you could enlist a colleague whoalso tries to save the Project from Hell, either as oneteam of two or working as two individuals. Whichever ofthese approaches you take, just make sure to retainsome sort of timing control.

CONGRATULATIONS…

Congratulations! You’ve done it; you’ve prepared thepresentation and hopefully rescued the Project from Hell– which is now, of course, the Project from Heaven. Ifyou want to compare your answers with a samplesolution then jump ahead to the solution (answers)section – but note that there is not one perfect solution or

answer.

Now what? Let’s assume you are doing this within anenterprise or learning organization. So how can what youhave learned so far be opened up to a wider audienceand/or assist your personal development? This brings usnicely on to the next section which introduces therationale behind a workshop and then provides a guideto delivering it.

Guide to running the Project from Hellworkshop

INTRODUCTION

Running the Project from Hell workshop requires goodfacilitation skills, a good understanding of the informationprovided on the Project from Hell and good projectmanagement experience and knowledge. This sectiondefines the workshop flow from the perspective of afacilitator, but does not include anything that could beconsidered an answer. In this way, you can find out moreabout the workshop process itself, and separately – asnecessary – read the answers section. Remember, if youare planning to try and rescue the Project from Hellyourself, the time to read the answers is after you havetried to rescue the Project from Hell. No cheating!

WORKSHOP RATIONALE

Is it appropriate to run more formalized (facilitated)team-based workshops, i.e. opening them up to a wideraudience? Note that an important project success/failurefactor is how a team performs together (their soft skills).As the workshop is team based, the participantsexperience first hand what this means in practice.

experience first hand what this means in practice.

If workshops are appropriate, then should they first becustomized to more closely reflect your particularenvironment? Note that often minor, non-structuralchanges – for instance, the renaming of the Project fromHell project stages – is all that is needed to make theparticipants feel more at home.

On the surface, the more that the Project from Hellreflects your own environment, the better. But in practiceless can be more, with experience showing that there canbe real advantages in making no more than simple, non-structural, terminology changes – for example, changing‘scoping’ to ‘requirements definition’. This has the happyadvantage of reducing or removing customization costsand also takes history, politics and bad experiences outof the equation. Participants are quite clear that theProject from Hell is a case-study-based project and notone of their own under an assumed name. If theparticipants themselves conclude that there areperformance similarities then so much the better.

A balance is needed because, of course, the participantsmust understand what they are doing in the workshopand see it as relevant. This is where pre-workshopplanning activity comes into play. This may include issuinga briefing document in advance or a spending a bit moretime at the start of the workshop in scene setting.

If the workshop route is appropriate then who will befacilitating? The usual dilemma and the usual options:

• Use an external Project from Hell certified learning andeducation company, or

• Prepare an in-house solution from the material availablein this book, or

• Adopt a ‘train the trainer’ approach – using an externalcompany to start a subsequent roll-out of workshopswhich can be delivered in-house.

The sections that follow provide you with furtherinformation to help you address these matters, includinginformation that a facilitator would use for running aworkshop and which could be used as a basis for in-house solutions. A word of caution, though. It is not justa case of having the right support material for a facilitatorbut, highly importantly, making the right choice offacilitator. An in-house facilitator would have a better in-house understanding; an external facilitator, less so – butwill be seen as being independent with no axe to grind.Take your pick.

NOTES FOR A FACILITATOR

Facilitation: the act of assisting or making easier theprogress or improvement of something.�

This section provides guidance to a facilitator about howto proceed once the initial PowerPoint slides have beenshown – or extend the initial slides to include the earlypoints below. Note that this assumes the Project fromHell gaming material is being used.

1. Welcome the group to the Project from Hell.Introduce yourself – your background – and thecompany; just a few words. Allow two to threeminutes maximum.

2. Now ask each of the participants to introducethemselves.

3. Explain that this is an IT project, but you don’thave to have an IT background to take part.Whatever the project background, we all makesimilar mistakes.

similar mistakes.

4. Get the group to divide into teams as quickly asthey can. Give out the participant’s guide once thedelegates are in their teams and ask them to:

a. Come up with a name for their team.

b. Read the participant’s guide.

While they are reading the guide give out theproject planning boards – one for each table, plustwo differently coloured pens. Keep them to theplanned timings. Ask if they have all read the guideand if so, proceed.

5. Now explain your role, as the facilitator: ‘I’mhere to help if I can as your mentor, to help youunderstand the workshop process and to assist withany procedural issues.’

6. Explain the task – a team working together inorder to:

a. Fully understand the process and the informationsupplied.

b. Formulate a view as to what went wrong andwhy.

c. Agree on how this project should have beenimplemented.

d. Present thoughts and findings by stage back tothe group (the other teams and the facilitator).

7. Remind your group (the teams in your room) thatthis is all about team working. Tell them that theywill succeed more easily if team members

will succeed more easily if team memberscommunicate with each other and that they shouldplan how they intend to approach this taskcollectively. They shouldn’t just jump into it andshould think about pre-planning, just as they would(hopefully!) on their own projects. But see the nextpoint on a facilitator’s role…

8. The teams haven’t got a lot of time and shouldconsider what, if anything, can be done in parallel.A light touch by the facilitator works best here –minimum explanations to start with, see how theyget on, give them nearly enough rope to hangthemselves but not to the extent of wasting theworkshop experience. Observe and listen, then givea bit of guidance as appropriate.

9. During the course of this workshop you will behanding out progress cards that give moreinformation as to what happened week by week.Tell your participants to read these cards carefully,consider what they are saying and capture anypoints they feel are relevant.

10. The project planning board is there for you to makenotes, capture events by stage, make suggestionsabout when an event – such as status reports, reviews,approvals – should have taken place. The colouredpens have been provided so it’s easy for participantsto make a distinction. They also have a flip chart, sothey can decide as a team exactly what the process isand who should do what.

11. Explain the use of the team presentation template.

12. Explain timings: ‘you have two hours in which tocomplete the task and present your thoughts andfindings’.

13. Good luck!

14. Give out the first two project progress updates(cards if you have the pack), and give another updateor card every ten minutes thereafter – adjust thisaccording to team size and progress.

15. Make sure that you talk about or make points aboutthe client’s specific key learning areas. Here’s anexample of some key learning areas where the client isconcerned about current performance:

a. Pre-project (i.e. don’t just leap in).

b. Communication and teamwork.

c. Status reporting, reviews.

d. Scoping (scope creep) and change control.

e. Planning and resource management.

Make sure you are aware of and understand the keylearning areas for this particular workshop. Try andget participants to understand, talk about and presentthe really top points during the workshop. Here’s asample:

a. The importance of correct up-front planning.

b. How communication can seriously impact projectperformance, both positively and adversely.

c. How absolutely crucial it is to define and controlproject scope (change control).

In the answer section, there are also notes against eachof these sample key areas. As facilitator, ensure thatyou have equivalents for this specific workshop and

you have equivalents for this specific workshop andkey learning areas.

16. Team questions. As the facilitator, you may be askeda question about a specific piece of information theteam members have been given. In the next section,comments (answers) are provided against many ofthese information items. If there is a comment you canuse it, or just answer from your own experience.Check out the example team presentation that followsas the specific point may be referenced.

As indicated, as facilitator you should be familiar with theanswer section that follows, suitably updated for yourparticular workshop.

ANALYSIS OF THE PROJECT FROM HELLINFORMATIONAL POINTS (ANSWERS)

Overview

A key team task in the workshop is the reading of eachitem of information in the participant’s guide and processcards and working out its impact (good, neutral, bad –typically the latter) and how it links, if at all, to otherinformational points, perhaps in different stages.

Each facilitator should have a printed copy of this bookand each team should also have at least one printed copyof the book – books can be ordered from Amazon andother bookstores, or bulk orders can be ordered fromthe publisher at www.infideas.com.

The book’s content provides basic information for thefacilitator to run the workshop, as well as information forthe participating teams to study the Project from Hellbackground and project events and progress. Individualscan receive a free and more detailed guide on analysis ofthe Project from Hell by registering at

www.theprojectfromhell.com, and an example of thedetailed analysis can be found below. In addition,professionally printed game cards and charts areavailable to purchase (these will, however, only belicensed for a single delivery of the workshop inside oneorganization).

Alternatively, if an external facilitator is chosen from theProject from Hell accredited training partners, then theworkshop will be delivered using these professionallyprinted game cards and charts, plus the partner will usetheir trained knowledge and experience to deliver a high-quality workshop aligned to your business needs.

Analysis example

If you are planning to try saving the Project from Hell, it’sbest to do that before reading this section whicheffectively provides comments which are somewherebetween tips and answers – once again, no cheating,please!

However, here is a sampler (project background) of thetype of information that can be read if you want to seehow the supplied informational points can be assessed:

The customer has a relatively small budget and theproject has to be completed within three months of thestart date. Warning bells should ring here: ‘small’ is oftena euphemism for a budget/requirements imbalance, andthree months is typically too short a period of time tomeet all customer expectations. It is extremely commonfor the customer, at the outset, to have a completion datein mind – for strategic business reasons, for operationalreasons (such as impending maternity leave), or justbecause the customer thinks it ‘should’ be achievable inthat time period. It’s much less common that the requiredcompletion date has been based on sound evidence.

completion date has been based on sound evidence.

Key project management learning areas

Introduction

First, a reminder of where we have got to in our goal ofsaving the Project from Hell.

If you have reached this point, you will probably haveread the sections that provide information on the Projectfrom Hell and its woeful progress, and you may havetried to save the Project from Hell and presented yourfindings, if only to yourself. You may then have looked atthe answers to see comments we have added to many ofthe individual items of supplied information, and reviewedthe example of how your findings could be summarized.

But there is a further learning aspect we can provide, stillbased on the same the Project from Hell projectinformation, but this time on some big themes thatunderpin project success and project management bestpractice. The following section lists some themes whichhappen to relate to a specific workshop’s learning areasbut have a wider applicability when analyzing whyprojects fail and where the Project from Hell provides anillustrative project example.

Your key learning areas may be different but, as saidearlier, the Project from Hell is a rich-enough seam ofproject information that could already include additionallearning areas you are interested in. In any event, the keylearning areas provide fertile ground for taking the half-day workshop you have been reading about and addingfurther half-day workshops that explore these themes inmore depth – including those relating to yourenvironment’s current approach and performance. Whatare your key learning areas?

Example of key Project from Hell learning areas

Pre-project

Typically there is pressure on the project manager andteam to get started: ‘let’s see something tangible’. Thiscan lead to a project starting before certain elements arein place, too much weight placed on estimates, etc., andwithout any business-case framework in place coveringproject rationale and justification. On the other hand, donot wait for every last piece of information or resource tobe in place. In general, a document such as a projectinitiation document (PID) or project charter or feasibilitystudy will help the project in moving forward and assist inlooking back and resolving difficulties.

Communication and teamwork

Have a communications plan and keep to it, in terms ofcommunicating both inside and outside the project team.This seems obvious but it’s less frequently found than itshould be.

Remember that working as a genuine team does nottypically happen in an instant – this is Tuckman’s teamdevelopment theory of forming, storming, norming,performing, (mourning).

Status and progress reporting

Tie these in with the communication plan. Keep themprompt, reliable, analytical – a snapshot, a trend, lookingforward but based on real evidence. If, at the last fourreporting intervals, a group of tasks has been reported intotal as 95% complete look particularly carefully at theforecast to complete.

Scoping and change control

Scoping and change control

Control of scope creep and requirements prioritization.Monitor the external environment for changes from theoutside such as a new regulatory framework.

Planning and resource management

This is a wide area including milestones and deliverables,estimates, dependencies, work breakdown structure(WBS) – i.e. breaking down large units of work intosmaller units. An NPI project in a strong regulatoryenvironment can use this technique just as in a softwareproject, but of course the work and required expertiseneeded will differ significantly. It also includes difficultiesof resource management – shared, temporary, based onshaky estimates, fixed to specific dates.

Conclusion

Well done!

You have reached the end of your journey through theProject from Hell, firstly through an introduction whichincluded an outline of the detail to follow, and then thedetail itself. If you chose to immerse yourself in the detailyou will have been able to read and analyze theinformational points about the project and its progress,and you will have been prompted to try and rescue theProject from Hell and prepare a presentation on yourfindings. Finally, you will have been able to readinformation on how the Project from Hell can be run as ateam-based workshop, and with guideline ‘answers’provided.

Whether you have read just the introduction or the detailas well, you are at the point of considering what next –

as well, you are at the point of considering what next –your actions and who else to involve. Remind yourselfwhat triggered you into reading this book and yourobjectives at the outset.

Good luck for your onward journey.

I never did give anybody hell. I just told thetruth and they thought it was hell.

Harry S. Truman

6 Experiential learning is the process of making meaning from directexperience. Simply put, experiential learning is learning fromexperience. The experience can be staged or left open. Aristotle said‘For the things we have to learn before we can do them, we learn bydoing them.’ David A. Kolb helped to popularize the idea ofexperiential learning, drawing heavily on the work of John Dewey,Kurt Lewin, and Jean Piaget. His work on experiential learning hascontributed greatly to expanding the philosophy of experientialeducation.

4More about hell

In which it may be surprising to discover thathell is a lot closer than you think.

The ultimate answer

In The Lazy Project Manager I suggested three stepsto heaven:

Step One: Buy a copy of the book for all of your projectteam members, sponsors, steering committee members,users and subject matter experts – probably best to buy,say, a hundred to be on the safe side.

Step Two: Get them to all read it thoroughly, or at leastread the chapter on ‘Even quicker tips for the reallylazy’.

Step Three: Book me as a speaker at the very nextopportunity you have and leave the rest to me –www.thelazyprojectmanager.com.

Easy!

Alternatively you could just move to Lazy in Poland (asmall town in northern Poland on the Baltic Sea, Lazy isa very popular place for Polish and German tourists whoenjoy the beaches).

Well, let me offer up another three steps to heaven in theProject from Hell:

Step One: This book is free in eBook format, so tellabsolutely everybody you know about it and get them todownload it today!

Step Two: Get in contact with one of my ‘Lazy’ partnersaround the world and schedule that Project from Hellworkshop as soon as possible.

Step Three: Book me as a speaker at the very nextopportunity you have – www.theprojectfromhell.com!

Easy!

And the alternative in this case is a trip to Hell itself…

Hell, or Hiland Lake, is an unincorporated community inPutnam Township of Livingston County in the US stateof Michigan.

Hell grew up around a sawmill, gristmill, distillery and a

Hell grew up around a sawmill, gristmill, distillery and atavern. All four were operated by George Reeves whomoved to the area in the 1830s from the CatskillMountains in New York. He purchased a sawmill onwhat is now known as Hell Creek in 1841and then builta gristmill there; this was powered by water that wasimpounded by a small dam across the creek. Farmers inthe area were quite successful in growing wheat and hadan abundance of grain, and Reeves opened a distillery toprocess the excess grain into whiskey. He also opened ageneral store/tavern on his property, and the tavern anddistillery soon became a thriving business which heexpanded.

Reeves’ family sold the land to a group of investors fromDetroit in 1924. The investors increased the size of themillpond by raising the level of the dam, creating what isnow Hiland Lake. The area soon became a summerresort area, attracting visitors for swimming and fishing.

There are two theories for the origin of Hell’s name. Thefirst is that a pair of German travellers stepped out of astagecoach one sunny afternoon in the 1830s, and onesaid to the other ‘So schön hell!’ (translated as ‘sobeautifully bright’). Their comments were overheard bysome locals and the name stuck. Soon after Michigangained statehood, George Reeves was asked what hethought the town should be called, and replied ‘you canname it Hell for all I care’. The name became official in1841. The second theory is tied to the hellish conditionsencountered by early explorers, including mosquitoes,thick forest cover and extensive wetlands.

Hell is also a village in the Lånke area of the municipalityof Stjørdal in Nord-Trøndelag, Norway. The village ofHell has become a minor tourist attraction because of itsname, as visitors often have their photograph taken infront of the station sign. This sign reads ‘Gods-expedition’, an archaic Norwegian spelling of the words

expedition’, an archaic Norwegian spelling of the wordsfor ‘cargo handling’ (godsekspedisjon would be thecurrent spelling).

The name Hell stems from the Old Norse word hellir,which means ‘overhang’ or ‘cliff cave’. The Norwegianword hell in its everyday usage usually means luck. TheOld Norse word ‘Hel’ is the same as today’s EnglishHell, and as a proper noun, Hel was the ruler of Hel. Inmodern Norwegian the word for hell is helvete.

Among English-speaking tourists, popular postcardsdepict the station with a heavy frost on the ground,making a visual joke about Hell being frozen over(temperatures in Hell can reach -20 °C (-4 °F) duringwinter).7

A man who carries a cat by the tail learnssomething he can learn in no other way.

Mark Twain

7 As yet the kind people of Lazy, Poland have not invited me to visit –although I have presented in Gdansk and Warsaw. As for the kindpeople of Hell (both in the US and Norway), I would be delightedto visit sometime in the future. Thank you.

5To the workshop and beyond

In which you learn how to get some further help to runthe Project from Hell workshop in your ownorganization.

The workshop

The following is a typical delivery of the Project fromHell workshop.

THE PROJECT FROM HELL WORKSHOP

Why learn about project success and failure factors in adry, traditional manner when, instead, you couldparticipate in rescuing the Project from Hell in thisexciting, interactive and fun workshop?

Compete with your colleagues in bringing this projectback from the brink of complete failure and into therealms of success – from hell to heaven.

Progress isn’t made by early risers. It’s madeby lazy men trying to find easier ways to do

something.

Robert Heinlein

The workshop – part 1

The workshop kicks off with a motivational session bythe Lazy Project Manager.

Learn about the art of productive laziness with the LazyProject Manager. Understand what is meant by the‘productive lazy’ approach to projects (and life), andlearn how to apply these lessons ‘to be twice asproductive and still leave the office early’.

The session will cover the definition of productivelaziness, the science behind the theory (yes, there really issome), and will share some personal learning experiencesthat led to the creation of The Lazy Project Manager.In addition the audience will consider the three keyproject stages – in one of which the ‘lazy’ projectmanager works very hard, and by the second they should

manager works very hard, and by the second they shouldbe in the comfortable position of enjoying the comfychair, safe in the knowledge that the project is well undercontrol.

A specific focus will be made on the third area, projectclosure, which can be done so much better with very littleeffort but with a significant value added for all would-belazy project managers.

The workshop – part 2

Delegates are then divided into a number of teams whoserole it is to analyze a failed project case study and thenpresent back what went wrong, why it went wrong, andtheir recommendations for improvements to ensure futuresuccess.

1. Name your team.2. Research the case study.3. Build a rescue plan.4. Present your solution.

Delegates will derive real value from the Project fromHell workshop’s content and materials, as they verymuch reflect everyday real-life scenarios: what can gowrong, mistakes that can be made, the loss of controlthat can be experienced, etc. Delegates have to identifythese and work out ways in which such events can bemore successfully managed in the future. With all eventsencountered being based on actual events across manyprojects, the Project from Hell has relevance across anybusiness sector and is very appropriate for mixed projectskills within teams. To quote one delegate: ‘I’m sure thisProject from Hell is based on Project XXX that wecanned last year.’

Increasingly, senior managers are looking to drivetransformation and strategic alignment via project

transformation and strategic alignment via projectprogrammes and portfolios, and the Project from Hellworkshop will advance their understanding of the risksand processes involved. Experienced projectprofessionals will be able to benchmark theirperformance against the Project from Hell project teamin the case study (have you lapsed into bad ways?), andline of business personnel will discover the importance ofproject management good practice, irrespective ofwhether or not their project involvement may just be parttime (what do you need to understand and learn aboutproject management?).

Highly experienced ‘learning by doing’ facilitation and theworkshop learning materials ensure that participants takeaway a better understanding of project success/failfactors and improvements relevant to their ownenvironment. With the workshop being conducted inteams, participants will experience first hand the processof team building and team performance and, inconsequence, the relevance of ‘soft’ or interpersonalskills.

Aims

The aim is a challenging but enjoyable environment withthe lessons learned staying in the mind because of thepractical and experiential nature of the learningenvironment. Prizes can provide a competitive edge.

The amount of time available is tightly controlled togenerate the stresses and strains of real-world projectsand team working. Soon, this is no longer a case studybut a living, breathing project that must be saved, andsaved by a deadline that is rapidly approaching andcannot be missed.

Welcome to your real project world!

Agenda

Partners around the world

The Lazy Project Manager has happily joined forces witha number of partners around the world and would love towork with more in the future.

work with more in the future.

DYLANMAE – UK

At Dylanmae our primary subject area is project,programme and portfolio management within whichDylanmae provides learning and education services withproject simulation embedded into a comprehensive rangeof training courses, workshops and corporate events.

Think of a project team, a Dylanmae facilitator and atraining or conference/meeting room replacing a pilot,crew and some expensive simulator electronics.

Please visit our website for further information onourselves and our services, and find out why theyprovide immediate and sustainable individual and teamimprovement at a low cost per head.

Our portfolio includes delivery and support of the Projectfrom Hell workshop primarily in the UK, and the trainingand support of the partner global network. This issometimes linked to joint delivery programmes with PeterTaylor, the Lazy Project Manager.

On our website you will see information about a series ofproject gaming simulations including specifically targetedareas such as risk management, team building andproject management office (PMO). The Project fromHell is also on our website – or visitwww.theprojectfromhell.com, of course.

Through all these workshops there is a commoneducation and learning theme of ‘experience-based

education and learning theme of ‘experience-basedrealities of best practice’. We are experts in this area,and again visit our website for our ‘learning by doing’approach, applicable not just to project professionals butalso to senior line management and other lines of businessactivity such as campaigns, events and secondments.

I’m Michael Finer the MD and founder; feel free tocontact me at [email protected],[email protected], or contact my seniorcolleagues: [email protected] [email protected]. We each have inexcess of twenty-five years’ practical project experienceincluding specialist areas of business intelligence andcorporate reporting, IT and telecommunications, newproduct introduction and high-tech electronics.

SIGMAPM – FRANCE

SigmaPM is an independent project management trainingand consultancy company established in 2009 as a soletrader under French corporate rules. It is located inNormandy and focused mainly on EMEA markets butwith missions extending into the farthest corners of theworld.

SigmaPM is owned outright by Mark Gray and works inclose partnership with several leading training andconsultancy firms around the world.

With the right tools, you can move mountains.

Mark Gray is a professional project management trainerand consultant specializing in developing projectmanagers and organizations to their full potential. Heholds a PMP certification from PMI as well as being acertified PRINCE2 practitioner. He brings his manyyears of experience in specialist semi-conductor, defenceand business process change projects to bear on any

and business process change projects to bear on anyengagement to ensure real value-added results.

Mark is also a regular speaker at PMI congresses andother events, and is a part-time lecturer at local (French)universities, and is able to engage with clients in eitherEnglish or French.

Contact Mark/SigmaPM by email or telephone+33(0) 6 12 1664 00. He can also be reached throughhis website and followed on Twitter: @sigmapm.

THE LAZY PROJECT MANAGER LTD

The Lazy Project Manager Ltd is the speaking, authoringand training home for Peter Taylor, the Lazy ProjectManager. Check out the website for lots moreinformation about being productively lazy. You can seewhere and when I will be speaking around the world,view video clips of me speaking, and also contact meabout speaking or just pose general questions aboutproject management and being ‘lazy’.

You can also check out www.pmpublished.com to learnmore about how I got my first book published and howyou could get some help if you have an idea for a book.

Become a partner yourself…

The Lazy Project Manager would love to work withsome more partners around the world and empower youto offer the Project from Hell workshop to your owncustomers within your region. Just go to

customers within your region. Just go towww.theprojectfromhell.com to reach out to us andfind out more information.

Should you join me in this project then you would ‘own’an agreed area to ensure that you can gain the best returnon investment for your upfront commitment. You would,through your partner agreement, receive:

• A licence to use the Lazy Project Manager brand andworkshop material (this book has the basic material butmore detailed trainer guides and collateral would beprovided to all partners).

• A 30% discount on customized copies of the book fortraining partners and corporate customers, offered by thepublishers, Infinite Ideas.

• In addition, a 30% discount on all future Infinite Ideasbooks, including all Lazy books, is also offered.

• A 20% discount on engaging Peter Taylor to present atan event that you organize.

• A 20% discount on assistance in the first delivery of theworkshop – this will be through the UK training partner,Dylanmae Limited – if required.

• Inclusion in The Lazy Project Manager and theProject from Hell eBook itself – your company details,profile, contact information and region in which eachpartner covers workshop delivery. As this is an eBookyour details can be very quickly included in an updatedversion.

• We would also connect you and the other partnersaround the world in order for you to work together in theevent of engaging with a global customer in multiple areas(i.e. multiple partners delivering the same workshop in

(i.e. multiple partners delivering the same workshop intheir local area) .

Dylanmae Limited would provide all necessary supportand guidance to get you up and running as soon as yousign up. We honestly believe that you will recover yourinvestment within two workshop deliveries.

You will also be supported by a unique marketingapproach:

• This book is part of that unique offering, with expectedsales in excess of 100,000 copies.• Dylanmae Limited have pre-prepared marketingcollateral that would be shared with partners.• Your profile will be on www.theprojectfromhell.com.

As ever, if you have questions then please ask throughwww.theprojectfromhell.com orwww.thelazyprojectmanager.com.

Sponsors of the Project from Hell book

In addition to those partners delivering the Project fromHell, the Lazy Project Manager is grateful for additionalsponsors who support the whole ‘lazy’ approach, andthis book. Thank you.

ARRAS PEOPLE

Arras People are the UK’s leading programme andproject management recruitment specialists. Since 2002our focus on project management talent has becomeincreasingly popular with organizations looking for theright talent for their business.

right talent for their business.

We are 100% focused on providing programme andproject management (PPM) professionals across the UKand across all industry sectors. Project managementtalent can be provided on a contract, interim, temporaryor permanent basis.

Positions we recruit for include:• Programme directors• Programme managers• Project directors• Project managers – at all levels• IT project managers• Portfolio directors / managers• Risk managers• Change managers• Programme office managers (PMO)• Project office managers (PO)• Programme and project office support (PSO)• Programme and project coordinators• Programme and project support officers• Programme and project administrators• Programme and project planners• Business analysts• Quality assurance• Project resource managers• Document controllers• Programme and project accountants• Business benefit realization managers

All our project and programme management recruitmentconsultancy services are carried out by our own in-houseteam of project management practitioners – experiencedin programme and project delivery and in providing aproject management recruitment solution to meetorganizational needs.

Services include:

Services include:

Organizational services

• Programme and project recruitment services –recruitment is a key element to the success of allorganizations, and in today’s competitive world securingthe best talent in a manner that meets the organization’sobjectives has never been more important.

• Branded project management job advertising services –a unique advertising proposition for organizations topromote their programme and project management jobswhich is 100% targeted at practitioners in the field.

• Project management talent acquisition services –working with organizations to create and execute cost-effective campaigns to attract and identify the bestproject professionals.

• Project management outplacement / career transitionservices – working with organizations to support projectprofessionals through transition.

For project management practitioners, services include:

Practitioner services

• Job advertising services. Arras People are 100%focused on programme and project managementpositions; professionals can register to be kept informedof new and exciting opportunities.

• Project management careers advice services – costeffective, one-to-one careers advice sessions areavailable to anyone through Arras People. Gain valuableinsights and advice on making the most of your projectmanagement career.

• Project management benchmarking – informative,relevant and wide-ranging in area coverage, the PPMcommunity regularly turn to the Arras People PMBenchmark Report because of its unrivalled ability totake the pulse of the nation’s programme and projectmanagement practitioners.

• Tools and resources – keep up to date with the projectmanagement marketplace with the Arras People series ofnewsletters, podcasts, blogs and tweets.

For more information please visitwww.arraspeople.co.uk or follow us on Twitter@projectmgmt

INFINITE IDEAS

Richard Burton and David Grant set up Infinite Ideas in2004.

We were on a mission to create a publishing business likeno other. In a world that is teeming with books, goodand bad (mainly bad), we set out to publish books of realvalue to the reader. Every page has something that mightchange readers’ lives for the better, forever.

Now, 160 plus books later, we like to think that we’veachieved some of our ambitions. We’ve developed greatbook series including 52 Brilliant Ideas, Feel GoodFactory, Infinite Success and Brilliant Little Ideas.

Factory, Infinite Success and Brilliant Little Ideas.

We’ve worked with top brands, including Marks andSpencer, Sainsbury’s, Champneys, Simple and AnneSummers, who value our ability to produce great contentin a beautiful package. Contact [email protected] ifyou’d like more details.

We’ve worked too with a number of new authors,including the Lazy Project Manager himself, to help themget published and get their masterpieces into the market.

We love great content, we love great books and we lovegreat ideas. Do feel free to get in touch with us if you’dlike to hear more.

David and Richard(www.infideas.com)

LOGICAL MODEL LTD

Logical Model Ltd and Simon Harris, PMP, IPMA-D,P2-RP, CGEIT, MoR-RP, specialize in projectmanagement skills transfer through training, mentoringand consultancy in basic structured project management,PRINCE2® based project control and Dimension

PRINCE2® based project control and DimensionFour®-based benefits realization.

If you agree that the current performance of projectmanagement has the reputation it has earned but not yetone to be proud of, then talk to us about how easy this isto remedy.

Over thirty years, Logical Model’s principal – SimonHarris – has integrated the best of leading PMframeworks with a pragmatic set of common-senseprinciples that together link board room to engine room.Our training provides tools and techniques matched tothe different needs of senior management, middlemanagement and technical staff.

At Logical Model we define common sense as ‘obviousonce seen’, not ‘everyone already knows it’. Commonsense is hard to discover without a guide but easilyassimilated with one. Its use still needs focused effort, butthe results ‘appear lucky’.

Our specialism is to guide enterprises to add the bestinsights, tools and techniques of Dimension Four®,PRNCE2® and the PMBok Guide® to their workingpractices and discard the worst. Its Next GenerationProject Management links business strategies right to leftworld to technician’s left to right dogma across the spanof investment (capital injection) through returns all theway to exit (capital reclamation).

You know that success needs an approach that engagesthe vertically integrated but differing set of duties andtools of roles across the management hierarchy, and wedo this by escaping an individual-oriented, exam-cramconstrained approach.

Next Generation PM is a best-of-breed fusion of threesets of thinking.

sets of thinking.

• Techniques from D4 that allow boards to explore afuture that links shareholders’ capital and the constantlychanging world, tools that clearly delegate outcomes withactive support and rapid response to escalations, apeople-centred outlook whose perspective lasts wellbeyond projects and ensures return on investment. (Tounderstand ‘ensure’ contact us to share a longer briefingthan given here or visit the tinyurl below).

• Structure from P2 that enables the managementhierarchy to control delivery of delegated objectiveswithin constraints and escalate exceptions.

• Techniques tools from the PMBoK Guide and othersources that translate known scope to resourced andbudgeted schedules, that incorporate response touncertainty into baselines, accommodate productlifecycles whether iterative (agile) or design first(waterfall) and faithfully portray current status.

To learn more see the paper on the American SocietyFor The Advancement of Project Management:http://tinyurl.com/NextGenPM or visitwww.logicalmodel.net. To discuss how to provide yourpeople with their parts of the holistic tool kit call us on+44 (0)84 52 57 57 07, or email us [email protected].

Tell me and I’ll forget; show me and I mayremember; involve me and I’ll understand.

Chinese proverb

Appendices

Project management and the alienencounter

I suspect that you will all know this story.

Six blind men were asked to determine what anelephant looked like by feeling different parts of theelephant’s body.

The blind man who feels a leg says the elephant islike a pillar; the one who feels the tail says theelephant is like a rope; the one who feels the trunksays the elephant is like a tree branch; the one whofeels the ear says the elephant is like a fan; the onewho feels the belly says the elephant is like a wall;and the one who feels the tusk says the elephant islike a solid pipe.

A wise man explains it to them. ‘All of you are right.The reason every one of you is telling it differently isbecause each one of you touched a different part ofthe elephant. Actually the elephant has all thefeatures you mentioned.’

This is a good story which shows that to explain andunderstand something that is complex requires the fullpicture. Each of the blind men was correct but togetherthey had the greater understanding.

Through a number of LinkedIn discussions I asked thefollowing question: ‘We all know the terms of definitionfor project management but, to get outsiders tounderstand what we do, how would you simply describeproject management to someone who has no idea what itis?’ (I’d suggested, as you may remember from earlier,explaining it to an alien from outer space.)

Now it may just be me – but I am pretty sure it isn’t.People outside project management just don’t getproject management. As I said before, my family have noidea what I really do, and here’s the test I mentioned atthe start of this book, just to remind you: ask any projectmanager you know to answer one simple question. Theymust answer quickly, no thinking time, just respond. OK.Look them in the eye and ask them ‘What does a projectmanager do?’ I bet half them will mumble somethingalong the lines of ‘they manage projects…’

Not very helpful.

So back to the ‘alien encounter’. I feel that we need toget a few things out of the way here. Naturally, and asexpected, people responded to my questions withcomments ranging from ‘If an alien arrived here fromouter space then they probably know more about projectmanagement than we do’ – a fair point – to a commentwritten in Klingon (and thank you to another contributorwho sent me a translation), and of course the classic ‘Ithought that project managers were aliens.’ Very good,and ‘no’, but sponsors could well be.

So here are some of the good suggestions along withsome of my comments in brackets – and, of course, Ithank all of you who submitted your ideas.

‘Making sure that it doesn’t cost you more and takelonger than planned to do something, all the whileanticipating any adverse conditions or obstacles that maystop you from achieving your goals and planning how toovercome those if they occur. Coordinating people to dothe different activities as they occur and making sure thatwe achieve the end goal. Actually, when I explain it insimple terms like this people look at me as if to say “well,that doesn’t sound very hard, surely anyone can dothat!”’

that!”’(Lesson: describing things in a simple way may makethem appear simple to do.)

‘A way of reducing the pain.’(This makes us sound like a headache pill.)

‘Project management involves thinking before acting,making good choices based on good knowledge,keeping everyone informed who needs to be informedand balancing the need to do a job well with the limits ofour purse.’(Nicely put).

‘If they got here, shouldn’t we be asking them thequestion? No offence to the team from NASA, but wemust learn from the market leaders.’(I warned you about this type of response, but I like themarket leader concept.)

‘Getting something new and exciting done with a groupof people!’(Sweet and looking at it from a different angle.)

‘The true definition of a project, according to modernacceptation, is a vast undertaking, too big to bemanaged, and therefore likely enough to come tonothing.’(A little negative perhaps, but I hear the pain.)

‘As we travel through the space/time continuum, projectmanagement is the universal tool that enables ourjourneys to take the shortest route through space, overthe shortest duration of time while using the smallestnumber of qualified carbon units possible.’(I like the style here – and there were a lot of journey-based explanations suggested.)

‘It’s worth pointing out to the aliens that project

‘It’s worth pointing out to the aliens that projectmanagement also requires the ability to perform miracles,and that project managers are actually miracle workers.Like Jesus who fed multitudes with two fish and fiveloaves, we also have to miraculously deliver unrealisticexpectations in unrealistic timescales with a limitedbudget. That takes a very special skill, which makesproject managers very special beings.’(I go along with the proposal that we are special beings,but I’m not quite sure of the supernatural skills – and Iam hearing more pain.)

‘A recursive scientific art aimed at achieving the goalsthat were set at the beginning and which needs to beachieved within the boundary of inherent applied orexisting constraints. Of course this would have to befollowed with the legitimate explanation…’(Over my head, for sure).

‘Project Management is a verb, not a noun.’(A good thought, slightly off topic, but I do like it, as youmay recall.)

And so they went on – thank you to everybody again: amixture of desperation, humour and deep thinking.

So why is it so hard? Here we are with an alien (or afriend or relative or neighbour) and we have five minutesto tell them what we do. Surely it should be simple?Albert Einstein said ‘If you can’t explain somethingsimply, you don’t understand it well enough.’ Really? Ithink that we know project management pretty well, andwe certainly have plenty of documentation on the subjectto help us out, and we have been doing it for quite sometime now.

Leonardo da Vinci declared ‘Simplicity is the ultimatesophistication.’ So we are all unsophisticated now, aswell? Definitely not. It feels like I have started a journey

well? Definitely not. It feels like I have started a journeybut have not reached any destination with this one. If youwish, the LinkedIn discussions are still out there – somaybe add your thoughts and see more of what otherproject managers have volunteered.

In a final desperate attempt to get something useful toconclude this, I texted the online answer service 36663who declare themselves ‘the UK’s most accurate textquestion and answer service, knows pretty mucheverything’. After five minutes I got this reply:

‘Project management is the planning, execution andfinalization of projects. It involves identifying resourcerequirements and controlling quality.’

I mentioned this to the alien that lives in my teenage son’sroom, mostly playing on the X-box, and he just said‘What?’

Life!

The art of productive laziness

Extracts from The Lazy Project Manager:

Productive laziness is all about success, but success withfar less effort.

By advocating being a ‘lazy’ project manager, I do notintend that we should all do absolutely nothing. I am notsaying we should all sit around drinking coffee, readinggood books and engaging in idle gossip while watchingthe project hours go by and the non-delivered projectmilestones disappear over the horizon. That wouldobviously be just plain stupid and would result in anextremely short career in project management – in fact,

extremely short career in project management – in fact,probably in a very short career, full stop!

Lazy does not mean stupid.

No, I really mean that we should all adopt a morefocused approach to project management and exerciseour efforts where it really matters, rather than rushingaround like busy, busy bees involving ourselves inunimportant, non-critical activities that others can betteraddress, or which do not need addressing at all in somecases.

Welcome to the home of ‘productive laziness’.

On the following pages you can read more about what Imean about productive laziness and how you can applythese simple techniques and approaches in your ownprojects. The major project topics will be covered butfrom a ‘productive lazy’ point of view.

I am not, by nature, a lazy person but I do have manyother things to do in life, beyond the projects andprogrammes that I manage, and I have therefore learnedthe manner in which to balance life, projects and work.What I am, though, and also by nature, is successoriented. Therefore the balanced approach that I utilizealso has to ensure that both my projects and my careerare successful and that they leave me with sufficient timefor home and family. Lazy does not mean unsuccessful.

I am a Lazy Project Manager. You can carry on as youare or you can join me in the comfy chair of life and stillget the project results you and your sponsors demand.

The science behind the laziness

This isn’t all just made up you know, there is science andhistory and a singing bear behind all this theory.

The Pareto principle (also known as the 80/20 rule)states that for many phenomena, 80% of theconsequences stem from 20% of the causes. The ideahas a rule of thumb application in many places, but it’salso commonly misused. For example, it’s a misuse tostate that a solution to a problem ‘fits the 80-20 rule’ justbecause it fits 80% of the cases; it must be implied thatthis solution requires only 20% of the resources neededto solve all cases.

The principle was in fact suggested by managementthinker Joseph M. Juran and it was named after theItalian economist Vilfredo Pareto, who observed that80% of property in Italy was owned by 20% of theItalian population. The assumption is that most of theresults in any situation are determined by a small number

results in any situation are determined by a small numberof causes.

So ‘20% of clients may be responsible for 80% of salesvolume’. This can be evaluated and is likely to be roughlyright, and can be helpful in future decision-making. ThePareto principle also applies to a variety of moremundane matters: we might guess – approximately – thatwe wear our 20% most favoured clothes about 80% ofthe time; perhaps we spend 80% of the time with 20% ofour acquaintances, and so on.

The Pareto principle is unrelated to Pareto efficiency,which really was introduced by Vilfredo Pareto. VilfredoPareto (born 15 July 1848 in France, died 19 August1923 in Lausanne, Switzerland) made several importantcontributions to economics, sociology and moralphilosophy, especially in the study of income distributionand in the analysis of individuals’ choices. He introducedthe concept of Pareto efficiency and helped develop thefield of microeconomics with ideas such as indifferencecurves. In 1906, he made his observation about Italianproperty which was later generalized into the Paretoprinciple, and into the concept of a Pareto distribution.

The Pareto principle or 80/20 rule can and should beused by every smart but lazy person in their daily life. Thevalue of the Pareto principle for a project manager is thatit reminds you to focus on the 20% that matters.

Woody Allen once said ‘80% of success is showing up’.I’m not so sureabout that; I have seen projects where there was aphysical project manageraround, but you would never have believed that lookingat the project’s progress, or lack of progress. No, it’sbetter – I believe – to appreciate that out of all the thingsyou do during your day, only 20% really matter. Those

20% produce 80% of your results. So you shouldidentify and focus on those things during your workingday.

Do this well and you will enjoy the world of productivelaziness.

The intelligence of laziness

It’s no good just being lazy; you have to be better thanlazy, you have to be lazy in a very smart way.

Productive laziness is not just about being lazy, it requiressomething more – and that is a powerful and magicalcombination of laziness and intelligence. Smart lazypeople have a real edge over others in society and aremost suited to leadership roles in organizations. Thistheory has existed for many years and has been appliedin a number of interesting ways. One of the most famousof these was in the Prussian Army.

Helmuth Karl Bernhard Graf von Moltke (26 October1800 – 24 April 1891) was a Generalfeldmarschall. Heis widely regarded as one of the great strategists of thelatter half of the 1800s, and was the creator of a new andmore modern method for directing armies in the field.

In 1857 Helmuth von Moltke was given the positionChief of the Prussian Grosser Generalstab (military staff),a position he held for the next thirty years. As soon as hegained the position he went to work making changes tothe strategic and tactical methods of the Prussian army –changes in armament and in means of communication,changes in the training of staff officers and changes to themethod for mobilizing the army. He also instituted aformal study of European politics in connection withplans for campaigns which might become necessary. Inshort,he rapidly put into place the features of a modernGeneral Staff.

Moltke had a particular insight and approach tocategorizing his officer corps, something which lives on tothis day within many armed forces, and something whichcan be applied to all forms of leadership, includingproject management.

If you consider the two ranges of individualcharacteristics, those that go from diligent through to lazy,and those that go from non-smart through to smart (yes, Iam being politically correct here), then you end up withthe four character types in the diagram above.

General von Moltke divided his officer corps into thesefour distinct types, depending on their mental andphysical characteristics. He ended up with (and he neverhad to be politically correct, having been born in thenineteenth century and being chief of the Prussian army)type A: mentally dull and physically lazy; type B: mentallybright and physically energetic; type C: mentally dull andphysically energetic; and type D: mentally bright andphysically lazy.

Type A officers , who were mentally dull and physicallylazy, were given simple, repetitive and unchallengingtasks to perform. They had reached their career peak inthe army. That said, if left alone they might just come upwith a good idea one day; if not, then they wouldn’tcause any problems.

Type B officers , who were mentally bright andphysically energetic, were considered to be obsessedwith micromanagement and would, as a result, be poorleaders. Promotion was possible over a period of timebut not to the status of commanding officer of theGeneral Staff. These officers were the best at makingsure orders were carried out and thoughtfully addressingall the detail.

Type C officers, who were mentally dull but physicallyenergetic, were considered to be somewhat dangerous.To Moltke, they were the officers who would requireconstant supervision, which was an unacceptableoverhead and distraction. Because they would potentiallycreate problems faster than could be managed, theseofficers were considered too much trouble and weredismissed. No career there, then!

Which brings us to type D officers. These were thementally bright and yet physically lazy officers whoMoltke felt could and should take the highest levels ofcommand. These officers were smart enough to see whatneeded to be done but were also motivated by inherentlaziness to find the easiest, simplest way to achieve whatwas required. Put in a more positive way, they wouldknow how to be successful through the most efficientdeployment of effort.

OK, now take your pick. What do you want to be?Type A, B, C or D?Tough question, eh?

So, smart lazy people have a real edge over others andare most suited to leadership roles in organizations. TheLazy Project Manager is all about applying theseprinciples in the delivery and management of projects. Itis assumed that you are not stupid (well, you have boughtor borrowed this book and I see that as a positive sign of

or borrowed this book and I see that as a positive sign ofintelligence), so you are already on the right hand side ofthe diagram. What you now need to do is hone your lazyskills in order to rise to the top right hand side of thediagram. Do this, and not only will your projects be moresuccessful, you will also be seen as successful yourself,and a safe pair of hands for future leadership roles.

A final definition

It’s a kind of magic: when one plus one equals so muchmore than two.

So what do you get when you cross one of the sevendeadly sins (sloth – number four in the modern-daylisting, as it happens) with an accelerant for resourceusage (good old productivity)?

• lazy [ leizi ] adjective (lazier; laziest)

1. If someone is lazy, they do not want to work or makeany effortto do anything.

– Lazy and incompetent workers are letting the companydown.

– I was too lazy to learn how to read music.

• laziness noun

– Current employment laws will be changed to rewardeffortand punish laziness.

2. You can use lazy to describe an activity or event inwhich you are very relaxed and which you do or takepart in without making much effort.

part in without making much effort.

– Her latest novel is perfect for a lazy summer’safternoon reading.

– We would have a lazy lunch and then lie on the beachin the sun.

• lazily adverb

– Lisa went back into the kitchen, stretching lazily.

3. If you describe something as lazy, you mean that itmoves or flows slowly and gently.

– …a valley of rolling farms spread out along a lazyriver.

• lazily adverb

– The river threaded its way lazily between the old cityand the new.

Laziness – sloth: apathy and inactivity in the practice ofvirtue (personified as one of the deadly sins).

So lazy – or laziness: is mostly seen as a negative term,or at the very best, as a term of selfish indulgence.

Productiveness – on the other hand, is seen as avery positive term: the ratio of work produced in agiven period of time. Productivity relates to a person’sability to produce the standard amount or number ofproducts, services or outcomes as described in a workdescription.

So, put the benefits of productiveness together with anintelligent application of laziness and you get ‘productivelaziness’.

Or, to put it another way, you get the maximum outputfor any given input, with an eye to minimizing the input aswell. Or, to put it yet another way, you get a lot of bangfor your buck, as some like to say!

It’s a jungle (book) out there!

Doo be doo be doo: inspiration from a great ‘character’actor.

You know that scene from The Jungle Book, one ofDisney’s great films,8where the bear Baloo encourages Mowgli, the boy, tothink about life in a different way?

Baloo sings about looking for just the bare necessities oflife, about trying to relax and cool it, and not spendingany time looking for things that aren’t worth it or can’teven be found. Or, put another way, he is explaining toMowgli that life using the good old 80/20 rule can be alot less stressful.

For me ‘The Bare Necessities’ could well be theproductive lazy theme tune. Check out the full lyricssome time, take a stroll down memory lane and watchthe film one more time and enjoy Baloo the (singing) bearteaching you all about the bare necessities of life that willcome to you.

If that isn’t good old doo be doo be doo productivelaziness, I don’t know what is!

The Lazy Project Manager’s favouriteice-breaker

Divide the group you have into small teams of four or fiveideally – any more and it gets a little difficult. A flip chartor whiteboard is needed for each team (or at least apiece of flip chart paper), together with a pen.

Get one person in each team to draw a large circle in themiddle of each sheet and then draw a line out from thatcircle for each member of the team (so a team of fourequals four lines, a team of five, five lines).

Now ask the teams to discuss among themselves andidentify:

• Three things that they have in common.

• One thing that is unique to them.

Allow them ten minutes to do this, and try to guide themaway from really easy things like football, beer, work,shopping, etc. You can set some rules if you like.

Now give them a further ten minutes to draw (and onlydraw – no words allowed) a picture of the three thingsthe team have in common and then the individual thingthat is unique to each person.

When everyone is finished get the groups to remainstanding and ask one person from each team to explainthe team’s results – and for fun see if the other teams canguess the unique things from the no-doubt very artisticmasterpieces.

This process avoids the creeping death of introductionsaround the table and also gets the group relaxed andknowing a little more about each other. It is surprisingwhat you will find out about your colleagues in a veryshort time that you didn’t know before. I guarantee the

short time that you didn’t know before. I guarantee theresults will be the topic of conversation at the next coffeebreak.

The Lazy Winner’s top tips

Ambition is a poor excuse for not havingsense enough to be lazy.

Charlie McCarthy (Edgar Bergen)

Do you want to do more with less effort? Do youdesperately want a better work–life balance? Then youneed to start by asking yourself some fundamentalquestions when the next job, piece of work, task orrequest comes your way.

TIP 1: DO I WANT TO DO THIS PIECE OF WORK,JOB OR TASK, ETC? EVEN IF I DO WANT TODO IT, DO I NEED TO DO IT?

Don’t do something just because everyone else does it orbecause it is the ‘usual thing to do’. Running with thepack is never going to allow you to take control of yourown time and will only lead you into over-commitment.

If you really want to change things for the better thenbegin by asking yourself two questions: ‘Is this reallynecessary?’ and ‘Is this really worth doing?’

If the answer is ‘no’ to either of these questions thensimply don’t do it! Of course there will be times whenyou ignore this advice because you are compelled to getinvolved just because ‘it is the right thing to do’, butreally you need to make these exceptions just that –exceptional.

Challenge yourself the very next time you are invited to

Challenge yourself the very next time you are invited totake on some new work. Ask those two criticalquestions: ‘Do I need to get involved?’ and ‘Do I wantto get involved?’ By addressing the decision-makingprocess objectively rather than being swept up inenthusiasm, acceptance of delegation or the assumptionthat you do have to do something, you will be betterprepared to do what is important and also do a good jobon what you accept is important.

TIP 2: IS THE RESULT OR OUTCOME WORTHMY EFFORT?

Only do the things with the most impact. It is all aboutapplying the good old 80/20 rule. What are the mostcritical things that you need to get involved in? What isthe 20% that will deliver the 80% of value (and not theother way around, which is what most people do – oftenthose easier actions that deliver a false sense ofprogress). Get the priorities right and you will achieve farmore, and by prioritizing this way, and assessing if theoutcome or output is worthwhile, then you can helpyourself to do what is most important.

Your time is limited – some people seem to believe thattime is flexible and infinite but they also tend to over-promise and under-deliver – so invest it only in things thatgive you the most return on your personal investment. Aswith all of these guiding rules there will be exceptions, butat least by starting with the all-important questions aboutas and when to break the rules, you will have done sowith the right level of consideration and planning.

TIP 3: DO I HAVE TO DO THIS MYSELF?

Ask yourself if you really are the best possible person todo whatever it is that needs to be done, or is theresomeone else in your network who is better qualifiedthan you to do this thing? If there is, be generous and let

than you to do this thing? If there is, be generous and letthem help you out.

The principle here is that allocating work to the best-suited person benefits everyone in the long run. Ofcourse, this cannot be done just to avoid work. Youhave to pick up some actions yourself.

The strength of saying ‘no’ should not be underestimated,and saying ‘no’ can be a very positive thing. If you don’tsay ‘no’, ever, then you will never achieve anything.There is the ‘what goes around comes around’ idea aswell. Sometimes you shouldn’t say ‘no’ – despite the factthat you may not want to do something, need to dosomething and there is someone who could do it better –because you do want to help out and be that team playeror Good Samaritan. Or it could be in your interests totake on a project so you can learn some new skills, inwhich case you may well not be the most obvious personfor the job.

It is all about balance and priority. Overall you want todeal with the important stuff plus a reasonable amount ofother stuff. If you keep on saying ‘yes’ then your backlogwill never decrease and you will spend far too much timeworking on unimportant things.

TIP 4: IF YOU HAVE TO DO IT, THEN WHAT ISTHE SHORTEST PATH TO THE POINT OFSUCCESS?

Don’t waste your time on the unnecessary. If it works inblack and white, don’t waste effort in creating atechnicolour version of the same thing. What is the point,after all, if you are just getting the job done (to the rightquality level, of course)?

Can you simplify it? Can you shorten it? If there’ssomething that you do which is complicated and difficult,

something that you do which is complicated and difficult,find ways to make it easier and simpler. List the steps,and see which can be eliminated or streamlined. Whichsteps can be done by someone else or automated ordropped completely? What is absolutely the easiest wayto do this?

Can it wait? Is it really needed when it is supposed to beneeded? Will it impact on others if it waits? Sometimes –not always, you understand, but just sometimes – notrushing into something can turn out to be a productivelygood thing as it turns out that it didn’t matter anyway, orat least that the need has gone away. We live in acomplex world of interaction, so at any given time justabout everything is changing.

Do only the things that are necessary to get the job done.Cut everything else out!

TIP 5: WHAT EXACTLY IS THAT POINT OFSUCCESS AND AT WHAT STAGE WILL YOUJUST BE WASTING YOUR TIME?

Having said take the shortest path to success, there isalso a counter-argument that says ‘can you make this ofgreater value in the long run?’ Can this be reused againand again? Can it have more value than just being a one-off piece of work? If it can, then scale it for a betterreturn on investment.

Now the buck really does rest with you because you arecommitted; you are taking ownership of this one. Buteven now the ‘less is more’ mantra should be sounding inyour mind. When you do get on to doing the things thatyou should do then consider:

• Can you automate it?• Can you scale it?• Can you make it reusable in a wider context?

• Can you make it reusable in a wider context?

Use the creativity that you have, that all productively lazypeople have, and make ‘it’ repeatable, suitable for awider purpose and audience, easily available without youhaving to act as a gatekeeper all the time (thereby takingup your precious future time).

At every opportunity you must think your actions throughto the end, as best as you can, and aim to optimize yourpersonal return on your personal investment.

The above is based on content from The Lazy Winnerby Peter Taylor (Infinite Ideas) –www.thelazywinner.com.

8 The Jungle Book is an animated feature film, released on 18 October1967. The nineteenth in the Disney animated features canon, it wasthe last to be produced by Walt Disney, who died during itsproduction. It was inspired by the stories about the feral childMowgli from the book of the same title by Rudyard Kipling. Themovie remains one of Disney’s most popular, and contained anumber of classic songs, including ‘The Bare Necessities’ and ‘IWanna Be Like You’. Most of the songs are by Richard M.Sherman and Robert B. Sherman.

About the authors

Michael Finer

Over many years, Michael has managed programmesand projects, mainly IS/IT related, throughout the publicand private sector in the UK, Europe and NorthAmerica. His work has included significant experience ofbusiness intelligence, data warehousing and corporateperformance management solutions. He tends to have a‘senior moment’ when asked in which decade hequalified and setup his first PMO.

After working initially in ‘user’ companies such asGuinness (Diageo), Michael then moved into the channeland services side of the IS/IT sector. He foundedInfocube Limited in 1989 and developed it to become aleading IBM Cognos services partner. During a twenty-year period he continued to focus on building a highquality service delivery operation while managing keyprojects and programmes.

Throughout this career he has had a passion for thepractical application of best practice, instilling qualityperformance and passing on experience and lessonslearned, particularly in the areas of requirementsdefinition, project management, and delivery ofsustainable business benefit.

This has culminated in setting up, with colleagues,

This has culminated in setting up, with colleagues,Dylanmae Limited, a learning and support companywhere he plans, develops and sometimes deliversproject, programme and portfolio managementimprovement workshops – often involving gamingsimulations.

When not working, Michael’s interests are family,cricket, modern art, films, improving his golf, andcooking Vietnamese spring rolls.

The Lazy Project Manager – Peter Taylor

Peter is a dynamic and commercially astute professionalwho has achieved notable success in project

who has achieved notable success in projectmanagement.

His background is in project management across threemajor business areas over the last twenty-seven years:MRP/ERP systems with various software houses andculminating in his current role with Infor; BusinessIntelligence (BI) with Cognos, and product lifecyclemanagement (PLM) with Siemens. He has spent the lastseven years leading PMOs and developing projectmanagers and is now focusing on project-based servicesdevelopment with Infor.

He is also an accomplished communicator and leader,and is a professional speaker as well as the author of TheLazy Project Manager (Infinite Ideas), LeadingSuccessful PMOs (Gower), The Lazy Winner (InfiniteIdeas) and Project Branding (Gower).

More information can be found atwww.thelazyprojectmanager.com andwww.leadingsuccessfulpmos.com and atwww.thelazywinner.com – and through his free podcastson iTunes.

If you would like to learn even more then Peter can becontacted for articles, training, workshops, presentationsand keynotes.

Peter Taylor, author and public speaker at The LazyProject Manager Ltd:

‘Peter is a powerful, passionate andpersuasive speaker. His presentation at thePMI Gdansk Branch, Poland Chapter eventwas one of the most exciting and memorable

speeches we’ve ever had!’

Malgorzata Kusyk, Project Manager, Thomson Reuters, January2011

‘Peter Taylor spoke at the NYC chapter ofPMI Professional Development Day

September 24, 2010. His presentation was“The Lazy Project Manager”. The meeting

room was standing room only and hispresentation was informative, educational andentertaining. Peter is a self-effacing presenter,

poking fun at himself. All of this is whatmakes his presentation so good. If you are

looking for a terrific presenter for your event,I highly recommend Peter.’

Karen Fox, President, PMI, NYC, September 2010

‘Entertaining public speaker and world-famous author of The Lazy Project Manager,

Peter has spoken at a number of PMI UKevents and has always been very well received.Highly recommend his book too! All this and a

day job … read the book to find out how!’

Chris Field, President, PMI, UK Chapter, November 2009

‘Peter was one of the keynote speakers at theNew Zealand Chapter Project Management

2011 Conference. His humorous and engagingstyle grabbed everyone from the moment hestarted until the very moment he stopped. If

that’s being “Lazy”, then fantastic. Given thefact that Peter had only arrived from the UK a

couple of days earlier I thought his energylevels were amazing. We were thrilled with

Peter’s performance.’

Rachna Vijan, PMI Conference Convener, New Zealand, July2011

‘Peter is a fantastic public speaker and ahighly knowledgeable expert. He has a unique

ability to deliver even the most complexmessages with ease, using humour to connect

with the audience, leaving a lastingimpression. It’s a pleasure to know him and Ilook forward to the next opportunity to work

together again.’

Mihaly Nagy, Project Zone, Copenhagen and Budapest, 2010and 2011

More from Infinite Ideas

Infinite Ideas is the web’s favourite self-help publisher.We have published hundreds of inspiring titles that havehelped millions of readers around the world to changetheir lives. In a world that is teeming with books, goodand bad (mainly bad), we pride ourselves on publishingbooks that our readers turn to again and again forfriendly and professional advice. Every page hassomething that can change lives for the better, forever.

If you enjoyed The Lazy Project Manager and theProject from Hell you might enjoy one or two of ourother ebooks, especially as they are available online forsuch stunning prices. Check out:

The Lazy Project Manager

In The Lazy Project Manager, Peter Taylor illustrates

In The Lazy Project Manager, Peter Taylor illustrateshow we can achieve more without expending more timeand energy. Welcome to the home of ‘productivelaziness’ and a more focused approach to projectmanagement. Here, we are able to exercise our effortswhere they really matter instead of rushing roundinvolving ourselves in unimportant, non-critical activitiesthat others can better address, or indeed that may notneed addressing at all!

It’s all about working smarter and Peter Taylor gives histrade secrets away in a lively and entertaining way. Thisis not a training manual. You won’t turn into a projectmanager by reading this book. But Peter, acting as‘virtual coach’ will help you to identify and focus on theactivities in your projects, do them well and enjoy theworld of ‘productive laziness’.

Available on Kindle now with amazing discounts!

Buy from Kindle Store UKBuy from Kindle Store US

The Lazy Winner

The Lazy Winner is for all those who simply want to domore with less effort and succeed in their working andpersonal lives without rushing around like headlesschickens or putting in 100 hour weeks. We are all toogood to put our careers and work–life balance at risk byworking too hard!

The Lazy Winner builds on the concept of ‘productivelaziness’, developed in Peter Taylor’s bestselling TheLazy Project Manager, which encourages people toapply more thought before leaping in to action andthrowing effort at a problem or task. With better planning

throwing effort at a problem or task. With better planningreaders can ensure that they are Lazy Winners andachieve success in what they do at work and in life –more impressive results with the minimum of effort.

Available on Kindle now with amazing discounts!

Buy from Kindle Store UKBuy from Kindle Store US

Copyright information

Copyright © Peter Taylor and Michael Finer, 2012

The right of Peter Taylor and Michael Finer to be identified as theauthors of this book has been asserted in accordance with theCopyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

First published in 2012 byInfinite Ideas Limited36 St GilesOxfordOX1 3LDUnited Kingdomwww.infideas.com

All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of small passages for thepurposes of criticism or review, no part of this publication may bereproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form orby any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording,scanning or otherwise, except under the terms of the Copyright,Designs and Patents Act 1988 or under the terms of a licence issued bythe Copyright Licensing Agency Ltd, 90 Tottenham Court Road,London W1T 4LP, UK, without the permission in writing of thepublisher. Requests to the publisher should be addressed to thePermissions Department, Infinite Ideas Limited, 36 St Giles, Oxford,OX1 3LD, UK, or faxed to +44 (0) 1865 514777.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the BritishLibrary

ISBN 978–1–908474–33–9

Brand and product names are trademarks or registered trademarks oftheir respective owners.

ContentsThe Lazy Project Manager and the Project from HellAcknowledgementsForeword1 Back in the comfy chair2 Project superstars3 The project from hell4 More about hell5 To the workshop and beyondAppendicesAbout the authorsMore from Infinite IdeasCopyright information

Documents

The Lazy Project Manager and the Project Peter Finer Taylor