Posts Tagged ‘project management’

The Complexities of a “Project”

I was out playing golf at the Nehoiden golf club yesterday evening with my son and a fellow golfer yet again reminded us of how humbling a game golf is. In theory, many of us who have played the game for several years, know what to do – stretch, the grip, the setup, placement of the ball, keep your head down, keep your head down, keep your head down…, practice swing, club face, back swing, read the green, so on and so forth. However, execution is a whole different thing and concentration is a big factor. For the undisciplined person like me, that last email that I just read messes up my execution. And then, I read research papers like “Rotational biomechanics of the elite golf swing: benchmarks for amateurs” (bad idea) and start worrying about how I am doing relative to best practices mentioned there. I need to meditate and do yoga to learn mind control & have a flexible body to be a good golfer!

We, in LTS, are engaged in a lot of “projects” and they pose the same challenges as a golf swing. There are umpteen variables that all need to line up for a successful execution. Just the way that the ball does not land most of the time exactly where you want to, projects also don’t end up where one originally intended. Sometimes, the ball lands in a sand trap and getting it out is not clean and you need to rake the sand to make the trap appear undisturbed – in several projects such mishits and cleanups are necessary.

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Measuring Progress

Another week coming to an end. Time indeed flies. Several of us traveled to Amherst College to talk to them about Drupal, the web content management system. I thought it was a great meeting. One of the key pieces that we will need for Drupal is Amherst’s Monster Menus.  Whereas I was very happy to see the UConn men win last week, UConn women’s loss was not a happy moment. These kinds of unpredictable moments always remind me of how vulnerable all of us are. No matter how good you are and no matter how well you plan, things don’t always go the way that you plan. No worries, there is always the next year or the next project. I also talked to the Friends of the Library on Tuesday about where LTS is headed in the years to come. It was really fun.

Talking about projects, project management and key performance indicators (KPI) seem to be everywhere. Demand for services is far more than the available resources. There are a few institutions that have adopted the project management methodologies and have been reasonably successful, but many are simply unable to. As I mentioned in an earlier post, KPIs are extremely important in conveying how an organization is performing at any given point in time, in comparison to the same time in previous years and how goals are met.

My own feelings about this can be cast as practical project management…

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