The road bike season is now in full swing on the Front Range. Kinetics is our "rite of spring" that actually had a nice day on Saturday. With this comes larger peletons starting to train for the events starting in June. My new ride has a few 100 miles on it and we're starting to train for those centuries and large group rides. This requires many miles and a selection of terrain to match the first ride - which for our group is Elephant Rock which comes some very "rolling" hills north of Colorado Springs. In the Rockies "rolling" means 1,000's of feet again over the course.
While on a training ride last week a large group caught up with us with their team jersey's on heading north on Highway 36 toward Lyons, just north of Boulder. This is small set of rolling hills on the way to Rocky Mountain National Park. There were several things to jumped out as we watched them pass us on an uphill strength:
- Everyone peddled smooth and steady with their tires tracking in perfect lines, two abreast, 4 deep, nice steady pull of the leads with the rest of grroup catching their breath from the previous climb
- No shoulder movement, no hip sway, no hint of bounce in the saddle, hip flexors doing most of the work and all in unison nearly in the same gear.
- Small conversation between the 3 or 4 riders, no head turning, just chit-chat as they "motored" by. A pleasant "on your left," and good afternoon as they road over the next ridge, picked up the pace and disappeared down the road.
We had been dropped by pros, pleasantly dropped, but dropped all the same. We all know we're amateurs. We're not rank amateurs, but mostly 55+ amateurs, reliving our glory days when we were moderately successful Cat 4 riders. But watching a group of Cat 2's be pulled along by their Cat Pro/1 guides was pure heaven.
What Does This have to Do with Project Management You Ask?
There are pros and there are amateurs in every endeavor - on the roads north of Boulder Colorado and in the offices of corporations. "Posers" our 16 year old's call them when applied to clothes, cross country records and general teenage activities, where those who what to be something aren't there yet.
The Project Manager's may be "posers" as well. But the professional have several traits the amateurs doesn't:
- Command of the mechanics of project management. This includes all the process areas found in your favorite PM framework as well as other disciplines not found in the mainstream community. But the pros have more than just knowledge, they have the experience to know when to apply this knowledge and when to hold back to wait a bit for the problem to emerge before applying a solution. Like the Pro Peleton, the "professional" has "command" of the tools of his trade and applies them with grace, forthought, and ease.
- Deep insight into the emerging situation of the project. Using tools and data produced by the tools, the Professional "guides" the project along the path to success in ways the Amateur doesn't have a clue about. Like the Pro Peleton that cruised on by, the Professional makes it look effortless. When it fact it is wickedly difficult. This insight comes from observing other professional, experimenting, repetitive application of tried and true methods, taking good notes, perseverance, strength (both physical and mental in both cases), and an innate sense of "leadership" that comes from years if not decades of success along with all the near-successes that harden the professional against the natural failures of his avocation.
The amatuer waves around the flag of professionalism with the trappings of "I want to be like them." But in the end he really has not yet paid the dues to start on the ladder of improvement. Owning the certification may be necessary but not sufficient
The amatuer project manager:
- Measurees progress by the passage of time
- Develops no-slack schedules
- Assumes all tasks durations are deterministic
The Professional
- Measure progress through deliverables that define increasing maturity
- Builds a risk tolerant plan
- Understanding the difference between probability and statistics and builds a probabilistic plan that can be analyzed for implicit as well as explict risks
I'll never be a CAT 1/2 rider (although there is a 55+ category now). But like a Pro cyclist, the professional Project Manager must train hard, eat right, ride hard, have a keen sense of current situtaion, and stay focused in the goal of hanging in the middle of the peloton and waiting for the chance to move to the lead at the right time - not too soon, not too late.