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Dear Reader,

Lets start the week with a bit of fun. Found this cartoon that I would like to share with you from Raven’s Brain called Project Management Humor: Getting the requirements right!. Anyone that has ever worked on a “project” will quickly chuckle at the relevance. It’s quite humorous and one to consider printing/posting.

Also readers the orginal source Humor in Systems Analysis. has some excellent cartoons on all sorts of IT / Project Management issues.

While all brilliant innovators are PMs in their own right, they pale in comparison with Leonardo da Vinci. Here’s a summary of an excellent article by GanttHead on what you can learn from the master and how it can benefit you role has a project manager.

1. Be curious. Da Vinci was so curious, he wouldn’t take yes for an answer. At a time when no one questioned anything, da Vinci questioned everything.

2. Think for yourself. Da Vinci was not afraid to make mistakes and learn from them. And neither was every great inventor who followed him. da Vinci said, “Test knowledge through experience.”

3. Sharpen your senses. According to da Vinci, the five senses are the ministers of the soul. He trained his sensory awareness the same way Olympic athletes train their bodies. He warned against being locked into and blocked by the same thought processes.

4. Embrace ambiguity, paradox and uncertainty. One of the most significant characteristics of highly creative people is their openness to the unknown and willingness to use their intuition. As a thinker far ahead of his time, da Vinci learned to translate imagination into a technical language and to experience major breakthroughs through intuition. In the same vein, Einstein imagined what it would be like to surf out into the universe on a sunbeam.

5. Balance art and science, logic and imagination with intuition. da Vinci felt that if you want to innovate, you’re going to have to cut loose from conventional grooves. The problem is that people are stuck in either a right- or left-brained world. The trick is to learn to be a balanced thinker. For da Vinci, that meant being creative, rigorous, playful and imaginative.

6. Balance body and mind. In addition to being mentally sharp, da Vinci was also a fitness freak. His recipe for a healthy mind and body: “Avoid grievous moods and keep your mind cheerful.” He also insisted that attitude affects well-being and stressed the importance of keeping mind and body lean and active.

7. Try to see how everything connects to everything else. “That’s system thinking,” Gelb explains. “Da Vinci said you have to see patterns, relationships and processes and how they all fit together.”

Full article - Leonardo da Vinci: The Project Manager’s PM by Bob Weinstein Gantt Head

PMI’s Organization Project Management Maturity Model (OPM3) is not without controversy, and things are heating up more than ever. Some tout it’s ability to help organizations navigate a growth path and others claim it’s too focused on academia and doesn’t hit on real world issues facing project managers.

Click here to read recent articles from the PM Think website that show the good and the bad of the OPM3.

The Project Steps web blog has a good overview of the roles and responsibilities within a typical project team. For your convenience, we have listed these roles below.

However one role is missing - the role of the Project Portfolio Manager.

Project Portfolio Manager is responsible for spearheading PPM within the business and has one of the most important roles within the Project Portfolio Management Team (PPMT) alongside the executive sponsor. This person is focused on leading the management team behind PPM and has overall responsibility for managing delivery of the portfolio process and communicating its performance to both the businesses strategic and operational functions. Project Portfolio Manager is responsible for guiding and updating the value judgments and policy decisions needed to guide the team. In additon the Project Portfolio Manager should have the ability to influence decisions to suspend, at any time, further commitment of investment monies due to failure to make anticipated progress, changing economic climates or shifts in business objectives.

Roles and Responsibilities

1. Executive Steering Committee: Sets the strategic vision and objectives for a given program or project. The team leads efforts to build consensus through the organization to support the project or program’s objectives.

2. Governance Board: Formal team of executives from across the organization that ensure projects will meet/are meeting enterprise goals.

3. Project Sponsor: Provides clarity of the project vision, and directs the activities of the project team. Allocates funding and resources to the project. Provides executive authority necessary to overcome organizational obstacles and barriers. The guardian of the business case, and ultimately responsible for project success.

4. Performing Organization: The organization whose personnel are most directly involved in doing the work of the project. This organization usually provides sponsorship for the project.

5. Project Management Office: An organizational body or entity assigned various responsibilities related to the centralized and coordinated management of those programs/projects under its domain.

6. Project Stakeholders: Persons or organizations (customers, sponsors, performers, public) that are actively involved in the project or whose interests may be positively or negatively impacted by executing or implementation of the project.

7. Program Manager: Person responsible for the centralized, coordinated management of a program (group of related projects) to achieve the program’s strategic objectives and benefits.

8. Project Manager: The person assigned by the performing organization to achieve the project objectives. The project manager is responsible for coordinating and integrating activities across multiple functional lines, and managing stakeholder communications. The project manager accomplishes the above by managing project scope, time, cost, and quality. Finally, the project manager applies project management, general management and technical skills, as well as team management, negotiation, financial and business acumen, combined with an understanding of organizational politics to meet project objectives and to meet or exceed stakeholder expectations.

9. Project Team: All the project team members, including the project management team, the project manager, and for some projects, the project sponsor.

10. Functional Manager: On projects, the person responsible for ensuring agreed-upon project tasks are completed using pre-defined resources under the manager’s control within scope, time, budget and quality constraints.

11. Project Team Leader: Responsible for ensuring that agreed-upon project tasks and assignments are completed on time, on budget, and within quality standards for personnel under their realm of control or influence. The team leader should be knowledgeable of the principles and practices of project management and understand the business unit’s strategic and operational issues.

12. Technical Manager/Liaison: Responsible for the technical implementation of the project as measured against the project requirements, quality targets, and budgetary constraints, and timelines. Ensures technical deliverables are consistent with the overall technical strategy of the enterprise.

13. Business Analyst: Primary interface between projects and business partners. Responsible for understanding current and future processes, including processes for the entire enterprise. Documents business requirements, generate business cases, assists in defining project benefits/ costs, and participates in project reviews
To view the Project Steps posting click here

For me history is the gateway to human behavior, it teaches us not only where we have been, but where we are and where we should go. History underpins everything that is past, present and future and much can be learnt for what others have done. The PMThink Blog 1st of a 3 part series relates the fall of Napoleon to the trials and tribulations of the modern project manager.

Click here to hear Part 1.

Napoleon on Project Management by Jerry Manas: What is it about Napoleon Bonaparte that has led recognized modern-day leaders to study his principles—and countless books on management and leadership to quote his maxims? For one, Napoleon rose from relative obscurity to rule all of Western Europe in but a few years—something the Romans took centuries to accomplish. He brought order out of chaos. He crafted an administration and civil code that is still in use today. His troops adored him, and the people admired him. Even his arch rival, the Duke of Wellington said, “In this age, in past ages, in any age, Napoleon.” Yet, Napoleon lost it all, only to die alone and in exile.

Are there lessons for today’s project managers and leaders to be found in his successes and ultimate failings?

Indeed, there are.