Project Summit: The Musical
I give Sara the credit for the title. It came late in the eight hour workshop, a time that found us burned to a complete cinder and there was no coffee in site. I did learn something today. The word "intermediate" to describe a class doesn't mean that the class is for folks with a couple years of PM experience. It means, you need to be in an environment where you use on a daily basis at least 50% of the PMBOC. (Project Management Body of Knowledge). They were discussing fusion while I was trying to figure out what color the wheel ought to be.
Yes, today I was in over my head. I'm not talking about out of place like a viking in the Iraqi war. I'm not even talking in terms of being a cro-magnon enrolled in Harvard. I am sure you heard about scientist finding on some far away island a group of tiny little humanoids that they have named "hobbits". Yeah, well that would be me, a semi-evolved sapian made president of the United States. Ok, based on events of the last six years perhaps that isn't the best example. Suffice it to say that my primitive PM world was crushed today under the weight of a very rich and mind numbing process.
Speaking for myself, I think I came away with about 10% of what the very good instructor wanted me to leave with.
Much of what I learned came in the form of observations and bullet points written on a 4X6 mini legal pad. The class was titled, "Harnessing the Power of The Project Management and Business Analyst Partnership in Your Organization." It could have been titled "Blah blah blah project management blah analyst blah blah your organization." At least I walked away with an understanding of what a Business Analyst was. It isn't what I do, it isn't what I would really want to do and it really should be called "requirements management" because the whole gist of the job was figuring out EXACTLY and unquestionabily what the client wants, what the client plans to use it for, and why.
Other observations I discovered was things like the larger project management gets the less "PM Success" you can find. I hope one day that they discover and accept that thermodynamics effects business process as well physical ones. Who knows, perhaps the PM process is what is flawed. perhaps they expect too much and overestimate to much. Their "patch" is Business Analysis which is a job and a layer added to the planning side of the process. It seems the idea is if they know exactly what the client wants to start with, they will have a better chance of actually delievering it with project management.
I also learned that this year's #1 buzword is "Synergy". Based on my observations, "Synergy" is the process of hobknobbing with your peers at other companies with the idea of selling yourself to them, or hiring someone for your company. Synergy is like prostitution with business cards. At least that is the way it is used here. I actually heard this sentence, "Get together, mingle, create some synergy!" Well, if you insist, but I don't do anal.
I think it was about 3pm when I turned my glazed eyes to Sara and she whispers to me a song she made inspired by the great musical "Oklahoma!" Oh the PM and the BA can be friends. I smell a Tony!
The best I could come up was
Our PMO's got BA too,
CI-CIO,
with a process here and a process there,
here a risk, there a risk, everywhere a risk risk,
Our PMO's got BA too,
CI-CIO
(We're gonna need a bigger cowbell.)
