76: Flexible or Rigid

April 11, 2008 @ The Tao of Project Management from P M Blogger

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The Project
This week has been fairly hectic to say the least. First we had to respond to several of the contractors who will be tendering for the cabling work asking for a site visit, so we put an afternoon on for them all to attend. Unfortunately we had to run it without two key people and that meant we had to get answers to some outstanding questions back by close of play the same day, but we made it.

Then the central heating at home suddenly died so I had to juggle being back there when the engineer came, which meant I have been running around the campus trying to catch up with things like a demented firefly. Then on Friday afternoon I needed to get the second stage tender documents loaded to the FTP site and email the main contenders by close of play and again just about made it so I could go home with a clear conscience.

Hopefully, things should be a bit quieter next week, at least on Monday as most of the team are doing a reference site visit and a couple are on holiday. Anyhow "the best laid plans of mice" as the saying goes and we have to stay nimble and flexible as project managers. Like this week, half the time we end up doing something totally different from what we originally planned, but as long as the project is moving forward it is still following the way. Maybe I should "invent" Agile Project Management with scrums and stuff but really it is just the way of the project manager, so I'll stick to that.

The Way
A rigid project manager that is set in his ways will tend to repeating what he has done before, as he ‘knows’ that it works. But that will tend to make his project management structured and repetitious and he will be unable to cope with those more ‘interesting’ moments and team processes.

The wise project manager, on the other hand, knows that what is flexible and flowing will tend to grow and develop. So he allows the team to go with the flow and things develop naturally. I know this, for this is the way of the project manager.

The Tao
Lao Tsu tells us:

A man is born gentle and weak.
At his death he is hard and stiff.
Green plants are tender and filled with sap.
At their death they are withered and dry.

Therefore the stiff and unbending is the disciple of death.
The gentle and yielding is the disciple of life.

Thus an army without flexibility never wins a battle.
A tree that is unbending is easily broken.

The hard and the strong will fall.
The soft and the weak will overcome.


This article is syndicated from The Tao of Project Management . The original article is available here. Read more in Project Management News, The Tao of Project Management .

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