Hi,

If you follow me, you already know that I’m writing my Posts about MS PROJECT for 6 or 7 years. I will continue to do that. But, I decided to share my long, long experience (30 years overall, and 25 years as a Project Manager) as a Project Manager with you. Why am I doing that? Because I found tons of books about Project Management, a lot of standards, guidelines etc, etc. And NO, I’m not going to write something similar. I am going to write my experiences. I was and I am Project Manager for a lot of Projects. Some of them were successful, some of them were awful. Some of them were awful because of me, some of them were awful because of lack of money, some of them were awful because of Management who thought that something coul be done when the whole team knew that it was impossible, and so on.

What do I want to achieve with my posts? Discussion! Thinking! Similar experience! That is what I want.

Be aware that I’m going to share my experience which is limited. In which way? I run Projects in Europe, particular in Southeast Europe! OK, so what?  you may ask yourself. What difference does it make? Well it does. Each and every part of the world has different people with different habits, different culture, and different approach to work. Whit that said, I do not mean that some people are more valuable than other. No, I just want to say that different habits, different Legislative, different cultures need different approach. And when you will read some of my further post you will often ask yourself: “How is it possible?” But it is. It is! And, last but not least, my experience is connected exclusively with IT Projects.

For the end of this first, introduction post I will tell you a story.

There was a customer who needs a brand new IT system. That was a huge Project. Vendor made an estimations:

1. What has to be done? Everything was straightforward without any doubt. Everything was well known upfront, and there was no such a thing like – RISK.
2. What kind of people do I need (I mean, developers, Database administrators etc.), and he conclude that he has got the best team in a world, and he can hire more of them, because they are easy to find. And, of course, all of them was and will be a great team who will work together in a best way, without any fight and intolerance
3. How much time do my time needed for finishing the Project? Because scope was clear, and I had the best team, time estimation was perfect, without any discrepancies.
4. How much money do I needed for this Project? Because scope was clear, team was well know, and time was estimated without discrepancies, I got a budget which was accepted form the Customer without any negotiation

After that Customers accepted the offer., and project had started. Everything went perfect. Team members were available all the time, no one had ever interrupt them, no one had ever even think about engage any team member on any other Project, or any other activities outside the current Project. And Project finished on time, within budget, customer did not had any Change request, and he was happy.

This story has a name. Fairy tail. This will never happens in real life. Every Project has number of problems. And that is exactly why I’m running this posts.

Till my next post,

I wish you all the best