Are you mastering fundamentals ?
On the last weeks, I was attending many interesting events about project and program management on very different topics and areas of PM knowledge and I was not surprised to discover that a common message, hidden or clearly stated, was always conveyed.
Many PM Practitioners are not practising the fundamentals of Project Management.
Fundamentals are boring and painful to learn and consolidate; imagine how many exercise a piano artist should do on the keyboard to make sure his fingers are trained enough before moving to a real song.
And then again when he is ready to play he trains hundreds of times fundamental passages to make sure the performance is at the level he wants.
Have you spent plenty of boring hours in testing your ability to create and manage PM fundamentals?
I have to admit, as a piano player and project manager, I was myself lazy in this activity that rewards you a little because it stays in the bottom of your skills and experience.
Yes, they are the level 0, from them you start showing up your ability to manage projects, play a song and so on.
I am not talking about mastering multidimensional WBS or Earned Value Analysis or Risks Scheduling Montecarlo simulation, I am just pointing out on the fact that PMs have to be easy to create and master fundamentals of project management: scope definition and breakdown, costs estimation, schedule creation, risk assessment, analysis and project reporting.
How can you create a meaningful plan if you don't analyse your scope, how can you understand where you are in terms of time, work and costs if you don't sketch a schedule, how can you manage the certain unknown of a project life if you don't consider the risks.
Then how do you feel with your PM fundamentals: easy to define the scope, no headaches in breaking it down, clear vision on assigning costs and timeline, no fear to consider risks, brave enough to collect data and report status?