On this Day, D-Day, I just can't resist reposting this post about "little groups of paratroopers," from John Marke's blog. As a member of the 101st Airborne Division, this is special day as well. The 101st along with the 82nd jumped before dawn to capture the beach head on Normandy. When we speak about "leadership, no finer example is Major General Maxwell Taylor jumping with his men of the 101st on D-Day. Taylor lead the 101st in nearly every battle in Europe, except the Battle of the Bastogne, where Brig General Anthony McAuliffe told Rommel "nuts" when asked to surrender. The story has it that Maj General John M. Wright was a young Lieutenant at Bastogne. Gen Wright had a football sized banner on the side of the hill in Camp Eagle, Phu Bai, of the Screaming Eagle shoulder patch. The 101st was the only Division not to have subdued patches in country. The intent was "let the !@#$'ers know we're here." That didn't work out so well after Fire Base Ripcord, but it was a nice jester.
John makes the point that no plan goes as planned. That progress is made, many times, in small chunks by dedicated individuals with focused attention on the immediate goal in from of them.
Dan Ward has preached this since I encountered his Rouge Project Leader blog. Dan by the way is off the South West Asia for his tour of duty, so we all wish him well.
The notion of "big planning up front," is of course a red herring in any credible project management process. Rolling Waves, Planning Packages, incremental and iterative processes are all part of DoD 5000.02. This does not keep projects out of the ditch, but those not understanding how the complexities of weapons systems, manned space flight and general government procurement completely overwhelm all the good intentions need to subscribe to Dan's blog as well as
