The Lazy Project Manager
What is productive laziness?
The Lazy Project Manager: Peter Taylor
‘Progress isn’t made by early risers. It’s made by lazy men trying to find easier ways to do something.’ Robert Heinlein (1907 – 1988)
By advocating being a ‘lazy’ project manager I do not intend that we should all do absolutely nothing. I am not saying we should all sit around drinking coffee, reading a good book and engaging in idle gossip whilst watching the project hours go by and the non-delivered project milestones disappear over the horizon. That would obviously be plain stupid and would result in an extremely short career in project management, in fact probably a very short career full stop!
Lazy does not mean Stupid. No I really mean that we should all adopt a more focused approach to project management and to exercise our efforts where it really matters, rather than rushing around like busy, busy bees involving ourselves in unimportant, non-critical activities that others can better address, or indeed that do not need addressing at all in some cases.
Science behind the laziness – being focused
The Pareto principle (also known as the 80/20 rule) states that for many phenomena 80% of consequences stem from 20% of the causes. The idea has rule-of-thumb application in many places, but it’s also commonly misused, for example, it is a misuse to state that a solution to a problem ‘fits the 80-20 rule’ just because it fits 80% of the cases; it must be implied that this solution requires only 20% of the resources needed to solve all cases.
The principle was in fact suggested by management thinker Joseph M. Juran and it was named after the Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto, who observed that 80% of property in Italy was owned by 20% of the Italian population. The assumption is that most of the results in any situation are determined by a small number of causes.
So ‘20% of clients may be responsible for 80% of sales volume’. This can be evaluated and is likely to be roughly right, and can be helpful in future decision making. The Pareto Principle also applies to a variety of more mundane matters: one might guess approximately that we wear our 20% most favoured clothes about 80% of the time, perhaps we spend 80% of the time with 20% of our acquaintances and so on.
The Pareto Principle or 80/20 rule can and should be used by every smart but lazy person in their daily life. The value of the Pareto Principle for a project manager is that it reminds you to focus on the 20 percent that matters.
Woody Allen once said ‘80% of success is showing up’, I’m not so sure about that, I have seen projects where there was a physical project manager around but you would never have believed that looking at the project progress, or lack of progress.
No, better I believe to appreciate that of the things you do during your day, only 20 percent really matter. Those 20 percent produce 80 percent of your results.
So, you should identify and focus on those things during your working day.
See www.thelazyprojectmanager.com for more
Jun 18th, 2009 at 11:54 pm
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Jun 19th, 2009 at 2:12 am
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#PMOT Lazy Project Management focus on the 20% that matters [link to post] (via @pmstudent)
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Jun 19th, 2009 at 5:03 am
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THE ART OF PRODUCTIVE LAZINESS
‘Progress isn’t made by early risers. It’s made by l.. [link to post] (via @pmstudent)
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Jun 19th, 2009 at 5:21 am
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Jun 19th, 2009 at 6:18 am
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RT I resolve to do the 20% that matters! @PMINMC: PM Student: The Lazy Project Manager [link to post]
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Jun 19th, 2009 at 7:03 am
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Jun 19th, 2009 at 10:08 am
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Jun 20th, 2009 at 5:13 am
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Jun 20th, 2009 at 5:21 am
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“Progress isn’t made by early risers. It’s made by lazy men trying to find easier ways to do something.” [link to post]
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Jun 20th, 2009 at 5:42 am
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RT @pmstudent: #PMOT Comment on The Lazy Project Manager [link to post] like this!
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Jun 21st, 2009 at 3:08 am
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RT @pmstudent: #PMOT Comment on The Lazy Project Manager.. Happy to on Monday
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Jun 22nd, 2009 at 5:19 am
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Jun 22nd, 2009 at 7:19 am
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@pmstudent So, work smarter, not harder. Work on what’s effective, rather than that which is the most work. Makes perfect sense.
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Jun 22nd, 2009 at 9:40 am
[...] excellent post "The Lazy Project Manager" over at pmstudent got me [...]
Nov 18th, 2009 at 10:19 am
Sounds good; however, such statements/philosophies cover a key weakness: we are rarely aware of which 20% of what we’re working on will make the 80% difference until all the dust has settled. As a result, we mere mortals work on far more …
I suppose some would say there’s a universal sliding scale that says the greater the percentage of work being done that makes a difference, the greater the insight, foresight,and brillance!
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