Critical Project Management Lessons fom Wile E. Coyote - Part 1
I was watching Saturday morning cartoons when an old favorite of mine came on. Wile E. Coyote and Road Runner suddenly graced my television screen and brought a smile to my face. Suddenly, I was seven again and trying to figure out ways for that coyote to catch that bird.
But, it didn’t take long for reality to set back in and it was once again 2009. And my project management hat went on. Viewing that coyote and that road runner from a project management perspective, I soon came to realize that both were making classic decisions that every project manager faces. And the outcomes are often very similar to what some project managers see.
So, I thought that I would present to you some of these project management lessons that I learned the morning from Wile E. Coyote and Road Runner.
Poor Planning Will Trump Intelligence Every Time
One of the early episodes, Operation: Rabbit, is one of the few episodes where we hear Wile E. Coyote speak and he is paired up with Bugs Bunny. A lot of the dialog is about how much of a genius Wile E. Coyote is and how Bugs should just give up now and save them all a lot of trouble. Of course, in the end, Wile E. Coyote is without his rabbit stew.
We will often do this as IT people. We are so accustomed to being the person who knows how the systems work, how hardware and software interact, and it is not uncommon for us to receive accolades because of it. The worst thing that we can do is to start believing some of the misconceptions that people have about us. We do not know everything. We can’t just walk into a room and make any problem disappear.
Strong planning is the key. Without it, it is irrelevant how smart you are.
Murphy’s Law is in Full Effect
Sometimes, lack of planning isn’t Wile E. Coyote’s biggest problem. He’s had some pretty well thought out and well documented (something most of us can’t say we do) plans. And still, things go horribly wrong.
No matter how hard you try, how many details you think of, there is always something that is out of your control. The spring on the pistol doesn’t have enough tensile strength or the fuse on the rocket burns faster than it did in testing.
This is why when you are planning your IT projects, it is critical to have a full set of back-out and recovery plans in case things go completely wrong. You can’t think of every single factor that could affect your project so make sure Plan B is ready, just in case.
Don’t Celebrate Too Soon
Wile E. Coyote has a nasty habit of thinking from time to time that he’s actually done it! He’s finally caught that road runner. But, alas, it is too good to be true. And, in the end, he discovers that he is worse off than when he started.
I’ve definitely done this! You just finish a complicated project and everything looks perfect. You are just on the way out after hurting your arm from patting yourself on the back for doing such a great job when the phone rings. Something isn’t working. Then another call. And another. Suddenly you realize that not only did your project fail, you’ve caused a significant amount of problems. Instead of your day winding up, you are just starting a very long and frustrating process of calming people down and troubleshooting unforeseen problems.
Make sure that you have checked over every possible factor you can think of before announcing you are done and even then, be prepared for the unexpected to come back and bite you in the derriere.
Don’t Make a Bad Situation Worse
There is never an end to the things that goes wrong for our friend Wile E. And sometimes he is his own worst enemy. Instead of stopping and thinking through why something went wrong, he charges in, more concerned with fixing the problem than any potential consequences.
I did this one time. I was so focused on correcting the problem with the computer that I had just images that I did not notice when I went to re-image the machine I chose the wrong image name and indicated that I wanted to image to, not from the machine. I had to tell the client that we lost all of the data and that there was not way that I could get it back!
Take your time when things go wrong. Think through your actions. Then act when you have a sound updated plan.
Part Two Tomorrow
That’s it for today. Tomorrow, we will look at some other things Wile E. does that gets him into trouble.
Critical Project Management Lessons from Wile E. Coyote
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