What do #Neanderthals, #projectmanagement and #ganttcharts have in common?
Neanderthals lived in Europe ca 300,000 ago, in the coldest climatic conditions ever known in the European regions. They were excellent hunters, innovative tool maker, and the first to master fire. But Gantt?
Maybe first a few words about me. From leading single projects to managing #portfolios of up to 1000 development programs of varying complexity, covering #FMCG to #automotive giants to #aerospace pioneers, I gained experiences I’d like to share– and if you read on, you will see the Neanderthal connection.
I started my journey as scientist at the German Aerospace Center in the field of non-stationary #fluiddynamics & #acoustics. My activities on flame instabilities in the project “500MW on a single shaft turbine” contributed to the latest class of today’s gas turbines. While working on this and a series of shorter commercial #consulting projects, I derived some key learnings on #projects:
1) EVERY project needs to start with a thorough planning, containing the basic tasks, their duration and their dependencies. I started my first job with a #Ganttchart – and these charts haven’t left me until today.
2) Most projects don’t run according to plan – there are surprises, scope changes, learnings; #projectmanagement is the art of adapting, while keeping the goal in mind, and avoiding to creep the scope. #agile
3) If you work on #innovation, taming the flame, there will be burns and scars, there are issues and unforeseen circumstances. The heart of #innovationmanagement is to have room for error, for trying out, for optimizing and for learning: #failuretobefactoredin.
4) Many side activities of project work, the #mathematicalmodeling, the #failureanalysis, ... are a source of further inspiration and as invisible as important, building the foundation for a next success.
5) Don’t be fooled about #correlation and #causation. Correlations are easy to spot, and given the time pressure, management favors firefighters jumping on a #correlation – to find out much later that there is no causation...
However, how does that link to Neanderthals? They were #innovators; they used and improved their tools, were the first to recognize the potential of fire and tamed it successfully. They planned ahead for tough winters by storing food and wood – although they most likely didn’t use a #ganttchart.
Science debates the root cause for their extinction (causation again 😉!), but the upcoming homo sapiens was probably the better project manager – by not only hunting, but adding vegetables to their nutrition, planning better and thus becoming more resilient towards the harsh climate conditions. The better innovator survived!
#ProgramManagement #LeadershipExcellence #StrategicInnovation #CareerJourney #ConnectWithPurpose
Senior Lean Manufacturing Staff Manager at GE Aviation - MBA | MS | CLSSMBB | Lean Transformation | Continuous Improvement | Lean Six Sigma | Innovation
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