Project Management Training
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Project Management Laws and Sayings compiled by Mike Harding Roberts
Project Management Laws
If it can go wrong it will - Murphy's law.
If it can't possibly go wrong, it will - O'Malley's corollary to Murphy's law.
It will go wrong in the worst possible way - Sod's law.
Work expands to fill the time available for its completion - Parkinson's law.
Finely chopped cabbage in mayonnaise - Coleslaw.
If there is a 50% chance of something going wrong then 9 times out of 10 it will.
A two year project will take three years, a three year project will never finish - (anyone know who's law this is?)
Murphy, O'Malley, Sod and Parkinson are alive and well - and working on your project.
Quotations
"We trained hard...but it seemed that every time we were beginning to form up into teams we would be reorganized...I was to learn later in life that we meet any new situation by reorganizing, and a wonderful method it can be for creating the illusion of progress while producing confusion, inefficiency and demoralisation."
Petronius Arbiter, 210 BC.
"I love deadlines. I love the whooshing noise they make as they go by."
Douglas Adams, more recently.
"I don't know the key to success but the key to failure is trying to please everybody."
Bill Cosby
"Nothing will ever be attempted if all possible objections must first be overcome."
Samuel Johnson, 1759
The 7 Phases of a Project
1. Wild enthusiasm
2. Disillusionment
3. Confusion
4. Panic
5. Search for the guilty
6. Punishment of the innocent
7. Promotion of non-participants
Sayings
Tell me what you need and I'll tell you how you can get along without it.
If you are as confused as I am then you know as much as I do.
A lack of planning by you does not constitute an emergency for me.
Give me a date, I won't hold you to it.
We haven't got time to stop for directions - we’re late already.
There are two types of software - bad software and the next release.
The testers won't break the system but the user who thinks the cd-rom drive is a drinks holder will.
Successful project management is spotting the projects that will succeed and shouting "Mine" and for the rest ducking and shouting "Yours".
Murphy was an optimist.
Accept that some days you'll be the pigeon and some days you'll be the statue.
Cohn's Law
The more time you spend in reporting on what you are doing, the less time you have to do anything. Stability is achieved when you spend all your time doing nothing but reporting on the nothing you are doing.