Projects Possible

I’ve heard many different things being compared to herding cats…  Project Management is Like Herding Cats, Managing Programmers is Like Herding Cats, Leadership is Like Herding Cats, Teaching is Like Herding Cats, Getting My Family Together is Like Herding Cats. (You’ve probably got a few things in your life that are like herding cats as well.)

The interesting thing for me as a NON-CAT person is I really wasn’t sure what that whole phrase implied…so I thought I might take a look at it from the standpoint of why I don’t like cats.

1. Cat’s don’t “need” me in the truest sense of they word.  They tend to do just fine by themselves and really to me only seem interested when they need or want something from me.  I’ve been told they “sense” that I am not a cat person.
2. Cat’s never seem to focus on anything.   You can easily distract them with a ball of twine or some other toy.  They can bounce from distraction to distraction and seem to be quite happy doing it.  I’ve been told they focus on the distractions… that’s what they are good at.
3. Cats will climb all over everything.  Boundaries don’t seem to matter.  My kitchen table, the stove, bathroom vanities, you name it and it is their territory. 
4. The incessant need to make sure that you know they have claws.  When you push them away or put them down, they will let you know that they also know how to use these claws.  Make sure you provide them with an acceptable scratching post or they will use whatever they can get those claws into.
5. Cats want to be awake when I want to sleep and if it’s mating season it is absolutely amazing the amount of noise that you can get out a cat when they are on the prowl.

So now look at your [Job or Task] and look at some of the reasons above…  I’ll use Project Management since I am a bit familiar with it…

1. Team members will often think that the PM is really not needed and that their job is to make their life miserable, holding them accountable for their portion of the project.  When people want to go it alone in a project things will quickly start to become problematic.  The sum of the parts is much better than the lone wolf.  (ummm cat)
2. Projects need to be organized, well communicated, structured, etc… If you are easily distracted or have team members that are easily distracted the project becomes at risk.
3. Everyone needs to know their boundaries and work on the things that they have been assigned.  I am a firm believer that you can’t manage ever single task.  You need to allow your team members the flexibility to do their task and all of its sub-tasks in the time allotted, holding them accountable.   
4. Having claws… In a project I might consider this to be the hidden agenda.  Either the project sponsor, the team members or in some cases even the project manager have an agenda that they want to accomplish that is not part of the project but they will wield their claws to get it accomplished.
5. Time management in projects is so important to meet the deadlines agreed upon.  If we aren’t meeting the deadlines we end up with again a project at risk.  Doing things “on your own time” never works well with projects.  I don’t care if you do it at 2am as long as I don’t have to get a call from you at 2am that you are running up against problems or need to discuss a change order.

So I guess the reasons I hate cats can be fit into the analogy…  I wonder if it would work with dogs?  Perhaps another day!

There was a super bowl commercial that was done a few years back by EDS… It was absolutely one of the funniest and well done!  I’ve included it from a YouTube search below… enjoy!

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