T HE
CRIT ICA L
PA T H,
V OLUME
5,
ISSUE
3
Book Review - The Project Manager Who Smiled – Peter Taylor
Taking the opportunity for some down time whilst traveling
to the PMI Asia Pacific LIM held in Singapore this year, I was
able to read Peter Taylor’s latest book – The Project Manager
Who Smiled. This is a fantastic book
for any Project Manager that enjoys
what they do, but also likes to have
fun doing it. Peter shares through
the book his experiences in talking
to project professionals about how
they have coped with difficult and
stressful projects and kept their
cool, their sense of humour and
team together to deliver wonderful
outcomes.
courage you to take some time out of your day to reflect on
what else you could do to bring the fun back to your project
team, especially when faced with huge challenges for delivery. The Project Manager That Smiled is full of ideas and
jokes, motivational stories and suggestions. A good laugh not
only reduces tension and relieves stress, but also helps to
increase team bonding and boost morale. When you are happy, you are more productive, more creative, more open,
more likeable and a better leader.
“Project Management is a serious business; but it is a serious business that can be a lot of fun too”
Have you ever noticed how a good laugh at work improves
the mood and team spirit, boosts your energy, and defuses
tension? According to a survey completed by Wrike with
2,000+ respondents from different industries, a good mood
helps 56.9% of employees to be more efficient.
I'm a firm believer that it makes all the difference in a project
Figure 1 The Lazy PM Peter Taylor with the PMIAUS13
team to have fun along the way on project I work on. I look
Conference team
back at the most recent project I was assigned to at
CommSec. A dry and boring compliance initiative that had
stalled due to the length of time the government was taking
to agree to the finer points of the regulation. Being the third
project manager assigned to “kickstart” the project I was
faced with getting a team of people together to finally bring
home the project delivery.
Never one to shy away from a challenge, the first thing I did
to bring the team together was to start “Friday Funnies”. It
was a good way to have a laugh about the issues we faced
with uncertainty, changing requirements and dis-engaged
stakeholders. I was lucky to find that the acronym for the
legislation was also the Portuguese word for cute. There was
an abundance of things to keep the team entertained. In a
revamped team I needed to work on our identity. This time
around, we were going to be the team that delivered! For
team unity, we decided on getting trucker hats with the
words I LOVE FOFA emblazoned on the front. Everyone knew
who the new FOFA team was and it started the buzz within
the business.
Happy to say now that the project is wrapping up, the team
and I survived and we are all still talking to each other! I enP AGE
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