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20 Project Management Funnies

July 10, 2012 | Author: PM Hut | Filed under: Project Management Musings

20 Project Management Funnies
By James Clements

One of my favorite mentors first assessment of nearly any project team he encountered was, “They’re not having enough fun”, and he was usually right. He was great at creating levity in a team, more laughter = more output was his ethos.

Here are some light hearted takes on our profession.

  1. It takes one woman nine months to have a baby. It cannot be done in one month by impregnating nine women (although it is more fun trying).

  2. The same work under the same conditions will be estimated differently by ten different estimators or by one estimator at ten different times.

  3. Any project can be estimated accurately (once it’s completed).

  4. The most valuable and least used WORD in a project manager’s vocabulary is “NO”.

  5. The most valuable and least used PHRASE in a project manager’s vocabulary is “I don’t know”.

  6. Nothing is impossible for the person who doesn’t have to do it.

  7. You can con a sucker into committing to an impossible deadline, but you cannot con him into meeting it.

  8. At the heart of every large project is a small project trying to get out.

  9. If you don’t stand for something, you’ll fall for anything.

  10. The more desperate the situation the more optimistic the situatee.

  11. If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it probably is a duck.

  12. Too few people on a project can’t solve the problems – too many create more problems than they solve.

  13. A problem shared is a buck passed.

  14. A change freeze is like the abominable snowman: it is a myth and would anyway melt when heat is applied.

  15. A user will tell you anything you ask about, but nothing more.

  16. A user is somebody who tells you what they want the day you give them what they asked for.

  17. Right answers to wrong questions are just as wrong as wrong answers to right questions.

  18. Of several possible interpretations of a communication, the least convenient is the correct one.

  19. What you don’t know hurts you.

  20. The conditions attached to a promise are forgotten, only the promise is remembered.

James Clements, MBA, MPD has been managing, directing, winning projects and developing project management processes in diverse industries around the world for the past 20 years. You can contact James via his website here and you can read more from him on his blog.

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 10th, 2012 and is filed under Project Management Musings. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

2 people have left comments

These are all old projet management quotes and any project manager worth his salt knows about them for ages. Need more original stuff guys!

Alexander wrote on July 11, 2012 - 4:03 am | Visit Link

Some of these are funny - some not so and are old. But, a simple read for Friday the 13th !

Paul Cable wrote on July 13, 2012 - 5:11 am | Visit Link

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