JoshHolden.net

I’m reading “The War of Art” by Steven Pressfield. While much of the book is a bit too… fluffy… for my tastes, there are some thought-provoking pros within. I like this:

“The professional arms himself with patience, not only to give the stars time to align in his career, but to keep himself from flaming out in each individual work. He knows that any job, whether it’s a novel or a kitchen remodel, takes twice as long as he thinks and costs twice as much. He accepts that. He recognizes it as reality”

“The professional steels himself at the start of a project, reminding himself it is the Iditarod, not the sixty-yard dash. He conserves his energy. He prepares his mind for the long haul. He sustains himself with the knowledge that if he can just keep those huskies mushing, sooner or later the sled will pull in to Nome.”

I think this really applies when managing a project. As a project manager, sometimes it’s difficult to manage change. We so often want everything to be written in stone so changes are kept to a minimum. But that kind of thinking creates a resistive attitude to evolutionary changes that are required of all projects.

Being a project management pro requires us to be patient and flexible. This requires planning for flexibility in your management style, effort predictions, and especially budget models.