“Congratulations! You have been appointed as the project manager of our new cloud migration project.” This mail just made Gaurav’s day. He was super excited to work on this particular project, and now he has got the chance!
So he went to the office, all charged up to get it started quickly in order to flawless project delivery. But one thing he didn’t expect was, he would face “The project management nightmare” on the floor.
“Abhay, the SWO is not signed yet. How can you ask for resources”- Mayank, a member of the resource management team asked. That was not it. He continued, “Even if you get the SWO signed, how will we get such people in the team with these skills available in short notice?”
“But you know paperwork can take a long time. Is there any chance that we can start this process in parallel?” Gaurav asked. Because as a Prince2 Practitioner certified, he knew that project risks can arrive, but all he needs to do is to focus on the product and the end delivery. He was just trying to make a case that would support that cause. “Well, I won’t recommend that, but if you get approval from the legal team, maybe you can start recruiting the external candidates,” Mayank said hesitantly.
After shooting tons of emails, Gaurav finally got a reply from the legal department, that said it is okay to hire external candidates. But there was another burden waiting for him: working closely with the recruitment team and the long hiring process to onboard just one team member made him almost crazy. It was not even aligned with the project delivery timeline he had expected. There was no progress at all. All of this fuss made him very demotivated and he thought of reaching out to his boss. “Seems like you are facing ‘The Project Management Nightmare, Gaurav” Amit, Gaurav’s boss said. “You don’t say. Nothing is going as I planned. I haven’t moved the slightest from the Project Initiation stage” Gaurav replied disappointedly. “Now, don’t lose hope. I was in your shoes once. But then I mastered my Patronus charm by learning how to overcome challenges if I have strong willpower,” Amit said. “Patronus charm? What’s that?” Gaurav asked curiously and Amit explained it to Gaurav.
“You see, I am a big fan of Harry Potter. And there’s only one thing Harry Potter was scared of. Death Eaters. In the book Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, he had a lot of unpleasant interactions with death eaters when they tried to suck his soul up. That time, he met Professor Lupin who guided him to use Patronus Charm. He also suggested him to think of the happiest memory he has while using it. Harry tried doing that, but he failed many times, as he was facing his biggest fear. But in the end, when he was cornered by death eaters, still he didn’t stop trying. By seeing his dedication, Hermione, Ron, and even Professor Dumbledore came by his side and helped him get past his fear. And with such a great team, who could not defeat some mere death eaters? So that’s how he finally got his Patronus charm working. Not just that, his Patronus charm was considered to be the second powerful Patronus charm ever”.
Amit added- “You are a Prince2 Practitioner Certified, right? What does Prince2 teach us? To learn from our experience. Why don’t you do the same here?”
This story got Gaurav all charged up already, and the little tip at the end made him more confident. He went to the recruitment team and asked to generate offer letters for the most suitable external candidates. And since his past experience clearly highlighted the long recruitment process, he decided to get the work started with the internal employees in parallel. Although there were many hurdles still like timely approvals, availability of environments, dependencies on other teams and technical issues in migration, and many more. But determined to find his own Patronus Charm, Gaurav kept dealing with all of these with patience and willpower. And need not we say, that resulted in a successful project with an obvious result. And that is how Gaurav overcame “The Project Management Nightmare.” And this goes without saying, his Prince2 knowledge acted like his wand in doing that!
In a Project Manager’s life, there’s no shortage of challenges. But if you get demotivated by that, it will only bring you down even more. Face the challenges in a confident way, and they shall pass too!
Do you too need a little help from Prince2 in your project management field? If yes, apply to our Prince2 Foundation and Practitioner course today!
Mr. Rahul Sudame is Delivery Partner & Agile Coach at Persistent Systems Ltd. Senior Business Professional and Agile Thought Leader. He is a proven leader and Project/Program manager in the IT industry. He was Vice President (Corporate) and Director (Programs) at PMI Pune-Deccan India Chapter. Rahul is PMI Agile Certified Practitioner (PMI-ACP), Certified Scrum Master (CSM), Certified Scrum Professional (CSP), Project Management Professional (PMP) and ITIL Foundation certified. Experience in end-to-end delivery experience (planning, monitoring & tracking, scheduling, software analysis, design, development) for web applications using Java, J2EE technologies in various domains such as Healthcare, Insurance, Retail, Virtualization, Content Management, ePublishing etc.
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