Project management with PowerPoints and Consultants

Project management with PowerPoints and Consultants


Executive management engagement in projects has always been pivotal to the success of a project. The communication channel between a project manager and the sponsor is essential.


What happens when executive management stresses on only listening to good news and pretty presentations.


Over the past few years, I have observed that project manager title has lost its credibility because of lack of professional development of both executives and project managers which has led to an understanding the role is more admin than really driving projects. Essentially decaying the profession and everything that it’s ever meant or stood.


When I first got the role of a project manager over a decade ago, I moved from being an operations manager and it required complete mindset change and I had to consciously make an effort to ensure to be worthy of that title.

We were taught that projects managers were CEO’s of that project and stakeholders were your shareholders and Implementation was the glory. High on accountability and we used tools to ensure the success of a project and people management skills. Documentation and governance were only there provide us with a structure and best practices not an impediment to delivery. So when I led my first project of the budget of 20K USD to 20mil USD, that mindset always remained and over the years gained me “safe hands”, “finisher” etc. Plus I feel I had gained a lot of experience and understanding of how we can go wrong when basics and fundamentals of projects are not followed.

Now, we have a new breed of people who call themselves “consultants” who have zero or no experience in any field and just because there is a title they are ready to connect with you in your level. Because of the lack of professional development or attitude of only wanting to listen to good news by some execs. Has led sycophants around them and they use shareholders money to listen to them and see pretty slides. So PowerPoint has taken prominence and the delivery has taken a backseat. Who cares about delivery when I can convince people who have even lower IQ than I do😎

You can spot/smell a consultant from far, mostly they are pretty to look, have taken an advanced course in PowerPoint where they can make 2 words look like a bible. They will generally walk around with an air of arrogance that they can sell anything to anyone. Plus they can connect perfectly match with their people who are ready to pay huge sums to listen to someone of same or similar IQ. Birds of the same feature have never been true.

And then PMI releases a study on % of projects fail because of stakeholder engagement and provide rise to more governance and documentation to make project management become mere note takers.

And then I hear people loosely using words like critical path and question why a schedule should have dependencies. So we have a schedule without dependencies but somehow they can see the critical path. Oh yeah! PowerPoint for rescue. I’m sure some of them reading this will still be puzzled as to how these two things are linked. I won’t even go into
explaining what means -bliss”

Then resource conflicts and slack, they build these on PowerPoint as well. slack is that tool Microsoft has - so how do these things matter.

Some people ask me to look out for forward-looking issues and use that word excessively and say words like a risk happened yesterday. Use these two words interchangeably, you know at the end of
the day nobody wants to hear those words. Plus aren’t they synonyms?! So you should have a schedule without dependencies but still, see the critical path and with no risks. If you tell me this you are hired and I will pay you.

So consultants have gone too far ends of the worlds and found these people who use the same terminology because of the same level of IQ and live in a world of blissful ignorance. So if you ever dare to point this out, god forbid they will fight and defeat you with experience.

Is this common or am I living in a world of craziness?
.... to be continued

Lessons Learnt from PMP exam

I passed my PMP certification exam on the 18th of Feb 2010 and wanted to share my journey towards PMP so all those PMP aspirants can take away some tips to crack the exam. It all started in June of 2009 when I was given a software project to manage. Until then I was into offshoring and process improvement projects and was working with the framework that was pre-defined and had to just follow it to achieve the results. This project was going to break or make my place into my organization's project team. I felt that I needed some formal training in managing project to make it successful. Soi thought PMP will be the best option & I started with the classes to understand and learn on how should projects be lead and managed. I realized that there was a paradigm shift and started applying the good practices that I learnt in the classroom into the project. It was working wonders ..well I didn't use all the processes but I had realized I had more control of the project and it felt good when we were done with the project. So in a way, I learnt the PMBOK by using the ITTO's in real life to check what happens when you use them. Well, that's enough with the introduction ..now lets jump straight into the process.

To start off I started reading Kim Heldman study guide which was an e-book but I must say it was wonderfully written and it is designed for anyone thinking of taking PMP exam. Plus I had PMP podcasts to listen to during my commute. I commute 2 hrs every day and I thought it was the best way to learn.

I finished my classroom training on Jul 09 and planned to take the exam in Nov -09 but it didn't happen because the work at the office took best of me so had to reschedule it to Jan-2010 because every Dec I take the whole month off and thought I would study for the test.

Well, that didn't happen as per the plan but I managed to study a little. But I guessed that was not going to get me through the exam. I tried taking a mock and I got a really bad score ..around 50% which was obviously very demotivating.

In Mid Jan '10 I set myself a deadline as 18th Feb '10 and devised a study plan to ensure that I was ready for the exam. The study plan was to finish a chapter each day from Kim Heldman's book. And the last two weeks before the exam I bought "CERT GEAR" and started taking mock tests to practice for the exam.

I used to spend the evenings taking the test and review the answers for incorrect questions. In the mornings I used to wake up at 4:00 am to review PMBOK as I felt that was the best time of the day I had most concentration. By the 17th I was scoring around 65% to 70% on CERT GEAR. Apart from this, I finished few tests on skill port, pmstudy and lots of sample tests on the internet.

The day before the exam I read the PMBOK cover to cover and took the final test on CERT GEAR. I scored around 75% and I was confident that I would crack the exam. Next day I went down to pro-metric to give the exam I finished the exam in 3.5 hours and when I clicked end exam - That was it !!

Now a new journey begins and I am going to use my new learnt skills at my workplace to become a superstar project manager. That's what I hope and I feel that this is just a start to a long journey into the world of project management to learn more through practice and delivering successful and meaningful projects at work. I wish all the aspirants best of luck and drop me a note if you need any help with your preparation.