Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Zen and the art of Project Management...


(with apologies to Robert M Pirsig)

In a previous role I was a Project Manager on a complex electronics product which had a number of unique features, it was the first product to use an external wafer fab and it was also packaged in a new SOT pack never used before by our company. The team comprised design engineers, marketeers, quality personnel, test engineers and various others with an interest in the product. Quite a challenge and one which I thoroughly enjoyed.

After 9 months hard work by everyone involved the project was delivered within the agreed timescales. A fantastic achievement for all the team.

A couple of weeks later I was at a Senior Management shindig when a very Senior guy in the company commented that the project had went very well and came in on time, which was fantastic but did I have any idea why ?

Not wishing to blow my own trumpet I suggested that perhaps the project manager had done a good job.

This was met with a perplexing look followed by muted congratulations and a swift exit.

It made me think that the more effective the project manager the more invisible he/she becomes.

A Zen moment indeed.

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