Preamble Your Project

Happy Independence Day from Iowabiz!

To celebrate our nation's birthday - and with help from my friend, Josh Nankivel, and his fellow authors at PMStudent - I thought it appropriate to look at our constitution as one big project charter:

We the people At their core, projects are about people.  They are of the people, by the people, and for the people. People skills are the chief component of what makes a project work.

In order to form a more perfect union Does your project support the cohesive mission of your organization?  If not, you'll have stakeholders pulling you in every direction.

Establish justice In a project setting, "fair" is a myth. There will always be somebody who perceives your project solution as unfair.  As a leader, you are shooting for an equitable solution.

Ensure domestic tranquility Keeping your stakeholders and end users at the forefront of your focus can prevent embattlement down the road.

Provide for the common defense Projects will always be embattled by office politics.  Why not keep your sense of humor and be prepared for the worst?

Promote the general welfare While you are meeting deadlines and building deliverables, why not develop your people and manage their skills and talents in the process?  It could save your project.

Secure the blessings of liberty While there are many tools and approaches in project management, the best practice is to maintain your flexibility, try new things, and ultimately just do what makes sense for your project and your team and your organization.  Rigidity kills projects.

To ourselves and our posterity What kind of legacy is your project leaving for the organization?  Will people ignore and dismantle the solution once you have moved on, or will they embrace what you have accomplished?

On behalf of my fellow Iowabiz authors, I wish you a safe and happy Independence Day holiday.

Carpe Factum!

Comments

[Josh Nankivel]

Wow Timothy, this is awesome!

Thanks so much for thinking of us when you put this together, and I love how you pulled together different articles from pmStudent. You tied them so well with this theme.

Thanks again!

Josh Nankivel
pmStudent.com

[Timothy Johnson]

You're very welcome, Josh! Great site you have with amazing content. Keep up the awesome work!