June 13, 2001	Volume 1, Issue 24
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Geese Don't Land on Twigs

by Rick Brenner

Since companies sometimes tackle projects that they have no hope of completing successfully, your project might be completely wrong for your company. How can you tell whether your project is a fit for your company?

ince companies sometimes tackle projects that they have no hope of completing successfully, your project might be completely wrong for your company. How can you tell whether your project is a fit for your company?

Canada Geese like to land on water, though sometimes they will land on ice, snow or grass, if necessary. They never even try to land on twigs, as sparrows do. They're too big for that, and webbed feet aren't much good for gripping twigs. Canada Geese do some things well, and others less well. Somehow they know what works for them and what doesn't. They stick with what they do well. For goose or gander, a twig landing might be the last dumb move it makes.

Unlike geese, companies sometimes tackle projects that they have no hope of completing successfully. So there's always a chance that your project is wrong for your company. How can you tell if your company is a goose trying to land on a twig? Here are five factors that can keep a project from being the last dumb move your company makes.

Organizational experience

Flocks of geese know their territory pretty well. They know from experience where to find food and shelter. Make sure that your project is like something your company has done before. If it's a radical departure, keep it small.

Staff experience

Goslings spend their first summer of life learning from their elders how to be geese. They train hard until they know what they need to survive. Use your experienced people as mentors. Have them show the others, and use every project as an opportunity to transfer skills and to practice. If you don't have enough experienced people, hire more.

Failure shouldn't threaten the enterprise

If a goose did try to land on a twig, it couldn't hold on. It would fall, and it might break a wing or leg. Geese don't try to land on twigs. If you don't successfully complete your project, failure shouldn't threaten the existence of the enterprise. A bet-the-ranch proposition is a bad bet.

When it's time to migrate, migrate

Geese stay in a place as long as it meets their needs. When it gets too cold or too hard to find food, they move on. Even though a project is compatible with what your company has done before, it can still be a mistake if the marketplace has moved on and left the company behind.

Stretch projects should be compatible Unlike geese,companies
sometimes tackle projects
that they have no hope
of completing successfully

Geese are large, in part, because they eat leaves and grass and have to process lots of food. If a goose wanted to land on twigs, it would have to be small, which would require a change of diet and lots of evolution. "Stretch" projects can help adapt a company to changing markets. But choose stretch projects wisely. A project that's inherently incompatible with what the company already does well isn't a "stretch" project — it's a "break" project.

For more about Canada Geese, visit the Web site of the US Fish and Wildlife Service Horicon National Wildlife Refuge and especially midwest.fws.gov/horicon/wildlifegeese.html.  Top    Next Issue

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More articles on Project Management:

Restarting Projects

When a project gets off track, we sometimes cancel it. But since canceling projects takes a lot of courage, we look for ways to save them if we can. Often, things do turn out OK, and at other times they don't. There's a third choice, between pressing on with a project and canceling it. We can restart.

Who Would You Take With You to Mars?

What makes a great team? What traits do you value in teammates? Project teams can learn a lot from the latest thinking about designing teams for extended space exploration.

Scheduling as Risk Management

When we schedule a complex project, we balance logical order, resource constraints, and even politics. Here are some techniques for using scheduling to manage risk and reduce costs.

See No Evil

When teams share information among themselves, they have their best opportunity to reach peak performance. And when some information is withheld within an elite group, the team faces unique risks.

Nine Positive Indicators of Negative Progress

Project status reports rarely acknowledge negative progress until after it becomes undeniable. But projects do sometimes move backwards, outside of our awareness. What are the warning signs that negative progress might be underway?

See also Project Management for more related articles.

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Public seminars

Organizational Politics for People Who Hate Politics

Have you ever felt powerless to implement an important new idea? Have you ever been "blind-sided" at a meeting? Have you ever lost two good employees because you could find no way to keep them from attacking each other? These are some of the issues of organizational politics. Many of us have become enmeshed in them from time to time, but we've also known some people who seem to be able to engage and prosper. How is that done? We'll inventory the challenges of organizational politics, and provide tools for anticipating and addressing them. The focus of this program is practical — attendees learn concrete techniques for dealing with the problems that arise in workplace politics, while keeping their integrity intact. Read more about this program. Here are some upcoming dates for this program:

• Download to
  your calendarRichmond, VA (South Side): March 17, Southside Dinner Meeting, Central Virginia Chapter of The Project Management Institute.
   
• Download to
  your calendarRichmond, VA (West End): March 18, West End Dinner Meeting, Central Virginia Chapter of The Project Management Institute.
   
• Download to
  your calendarThe Conference Center at Bentley in Waltham, MA: May 1, Professional Development Day, Massachusetts Bay Chapter of the Project Management Institute. Register now.
   

The Race to the South Pole: Ten Lessons for Project Managers

On 14 December 1911, four men led by Roald Amundsen reached the South Pole. Thirty-five days later, Robert F. Scott and four others followed. Amundsen had won the race to the pole. Amundsen's party returned to base on 26 January 1912. Scott's party perished. As historical drama, why this happened is interesting enough, but to project managers, the story is fascinating. Lessons abound. Read more about this program. Here are some upcoming dates for this program:

• Download to
  your calendarMelbourne, FL: April 12, Monthly Meeting, Space Coast Florida Chapter of the Project Management Institute. Register now.
   
• Download to
  your calendarHilton Garden Inn, Idaho Falls, ID: April 15, Professional Development Day, Eastern Idaho Chapter of the Project Management Institute.
   
• Download to
  your calendarThe Conference Center at Bentley in Waltham, MA: May 1, Professional Development Day, Massachusetts Bay Chapter of the Project Management Institute. Register now.
   
• Fort Wayne, IN: September 22, Monthly Meeting, Northeast Indiana Chapter of the Project Management Institute.
   
• Overland Park Convention Center, Overland Park, KS: October 4, Professional Development Day, Kansas City Chapter of the Project Management Institute.
   
• Download to
  your calendarMITRE, in Bedford, MA: February 15, 2011, Monthly Meeting, Boston SPIN.
   

Person-to-Person Communication for Project Managers

When we talk, listen, send or read emails, read or write memos, or when we leave or listen to voice mail messages, we're communicating person-to-person. And whenever we communicate person-to-person, we risk being misunderstood, offending others, feeling hurt, and being confused. There are so many ways for things to go wrong that we could never learn how to fix all the problems. A more effective approach avoids problems altogether, or at least minimizes their occurrence. In this very interactive program you'll learn a model of inter-personal communications that can help you stay out of the ditch. In those moments of intense involvement, when we're most likely to slip, you'll have a new tool to use to keep things constructive. Read more about this program. Here's an upcoming date for this program:

• Download to
  your calendarHilton Garden Inn, Idaho Falls, ID: April 15, Professional Development Day, Eastern Idaho Chapter of the Project Management Institute.
   

The Politics of Meetings for People Who Hate Politics

There's a lot more to running an effective meeting than having the right room, the right equipment, and the right people. With meetings, the whole really is more than the sum of its parts. How the parts interact with each other and with external elements is as important as the parts themselves. And those interactions are the essence of politics for meetings. This program explores techniques for leading meetings that are based on understanding political interactions, and using that knowledge effectively to meet organizational goals. Read more about this program. Here are some upcoming dates for this program:

• Download to
  your calendarHilton Garden Inn, Idaho Falls, ID: April 15, Professional Development Day, Eastern Idaho Chapter of the Project Management Institute.
   
• Download to
  your calendarWherever you are: it's a webinar: August 3, Monthly Meeting Webinar, Memphis Chapter of the Project Management Institute.
   

Human-Centered Risk Management

Most of us can assess technological risks, but risks related to human behavior tend to resist our best efforts. This session provides a framework for evaluating risks related to the behavior of individuals, teams, organizations and people generally. Human-centered risk differs from technological or market risk, because objective evaluation requires acknowledging personal and organizational limitations and failures. Since some of those limitations and failures might apply to the people assessing the risks, or to their superiors, there's a tendency to deny them or to explain them away. Our approach examines capability, organization, context, risk mitigation, and workplace politics. It has tools for guiding the assessment and management of human-centered risk, and we show how to extend these tools to suit your situation. You'll learn how to identify sources of risk in human behavior; recognize systemic and individual barriers to acknowledging risk; assess the effects of organizational turbulence; determine the risk associated with inappropriate internal risk transfer; estimate the effects of team dysfunction, toxic conflict and turnover; and measure the impact of workplace politics. Read more about this program. Here's an upcoming date for this program:

• Download to
  your calendarHilton Garden Inn, Idaho Falls, ID: April 15, Professional Development Day, Eastern Idaho Chapter of the Project Management Institute.
   

Managing Virtual Teams for Real Results

Managing global or dispersed teams is challenging — miscommunications, misunderstandings, and interpersonal conflict all thrive in the typical environment of the distributed team. And they're even more common in global teams, because of time-zone offsets and language and cultural differences. We'll inventory the challenges distributed and global teams face, and provide tools for anticipating and addressing them. The focus of this program is practical — attendees will learn concrete techniques for preventing and dealing with the problems that accompany global and distributed teams. Read more about this program. Here's an upcoming date for this program:

• Download to
  your calendarKitchener, Ontario: May 19, Dinner Meeting, PMI Canada's Technology Triangle Chapter.