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Project HEADWAY
Webinar Mark Mullaly is the host for
today s webinar. Mark is a
management consultant with
Can I Keep Doing This? more than 25 years of
project management
experience.

Mark Mullaly, Ph.D., PMP He brings a wealth of

mark.mullaly@interthink.ca experience in managing
projects in a broad array of
@markmullaly sectors and industries.

We will be starting at 3:00 PM EST 2

Webinar Objectives

• Acknowledge The Challenges Inherent In Being A

Project Manager

• Recognize Why We Choose The Job In The First

Place

• Identify Strategies To Sustain Ourselves In Our

Careers

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Webinar Process – Things to Know

• This Is A Cisco WebExPresentation

• PowerPoint
• Computer-based audio stream
• Problems or Help?
• Contact Heather using the Q&A box
• Questions?
• Submit a question in the Q&A box
• Questions will be answered during the Q&A session
• We may not be able to answer all questions
• This Presentation Will Be Recorded for Future
Reference
• PDUs

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Agenda

• Introduction
• Defining Our Terms
• Why We Become PMs
• The Challenge Of Sustainability
• Sustaining Ourselves As PMs
• Question & Answer Session

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Defining Our Terms

Sustainable

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Defining ‘Sustainable'

• 'Sustainable' Means:
• Capable of being sustained
• Of, relating to, or being a method of harvesting or using
a resource so that the resource is not depleted or
permanently damaged
• Sustainable techniques
• Sustainable agriculture
• Of or relating to a lifestyle involving the use of
sustainable methods

• Source: merriam-webster.com
• Definition taken on 15 April 2019
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Defining ‘Stamina'

• Seeking A Definition Of ‘Stamina’ Gets Us Shunted To

‘Endurance’
• Which on reflection isn’t actually a bad thing

• ‘Endurance' Means:
• The ability to withstand hardship or adversity
• Especially : the ability to sustain a prolonged stressful effort
or activity
• The act or an instance of enduring or suffering
• Permanance, duration

• Source: merriam-webster.com
• Definition taken on 15 April 2019

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Defining ‘Resilience'

• 'Resilience' Means:
• The capability of a strained body to recover its size and
shape after deformation caused especially by
compressive stress
• An ability to recover from or adjust easily to misfortune
or change

• Source: merriam-webster.com
• Definition taken on 15 April 2019

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So Where Am I Going With This?

• I Started With An Exploration Of Sustainability

• Specifically, how we sustain ourselves in our roles
• What thinking about that actually means
• A particular emphasis is avoiding damage and depletion
• Which is an interesting question to reflect on

• We Often Don’t Think About “Sustainability” As A Career

Concept
• Terms we are more often likely to use are things like stamina,
endurance and resilience
• They implicitly acknowledge damage, deformation and stress
• Which, if we’re honest, often gets celebrated in business
• But what does that mean for our ability to carry on carrying on?

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Why We Become PMs

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Think About This For A Second…

• Why Did You Become A Project Manager?

• No, I mean really, what was the underlying driver?
• What motivated you? What guided you?

• People Who Identify As Project Managers Are A

Unique Breed
• They like variety and challenge
• They (sort of) thrive on stress
• They will frequently claim “I never live the same day
twice!”
• (Spoiler alert: I know this, because I’m one of them)
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We Like The Challenge

• For Some Of Us, The Appeal Is The Challenge

• (You know who you are)

• It’s Something Close To Doing The Impossible

• It appeals to our Type ‘A’ natures
• We are most motivated by the statement “It can’t be done.”
• It’s the same reason we climbed Mount Everest
• “Because it’s there.”

• An Inherent Conflict
• Challenge is part of the appeal
• Are we confident in our ability to confront challenge head
on, day-after-day, year-after-year, decade-after-decade?
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We Like The Variety

• Projects Are Multifaceted

• They do different things
• They exist in different fields
• They require different expertise
• We get to learn a little about a whole lot

• The World Leans Towards Specialization

• As project managers, it’s OK to be generalists
• It’s not easy being generalists, but it’s decidedly OK
• And arguably entirely necessary

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We Like The Opportunity

• Where We Might Take Project Management Is

Broad In Scope
• There are multiple available directions
• Arguably, the more we do, and the more we know, the
broader our potential horizons

• The Potential And Flexibility Can Be Enormously

Appealing
• There is a career worth of challenge and growth
available
• We value the opportunity to make a significant—and
varied—contribution

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We Fell Into This By Accident

• What For Many Is Closest To The Truth

• We are accidental project managers
• We started off endeavoring to organize and do stuff
• Somewhere along the way we discovered project
management is actually a thing
• We embraced, learned, and adopted the practices that
made a difference for us in our role

• Part Of This Is Simply Pragmatism

• Running into challenges, and finding solutions
• Where we take it depends on motivation, interest,
direction, opportunity and perseverance
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The Challenge Of Sustainability

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What Career Development Feels Like

• If You’re A Project Manager, Career Development

Can Follow A Predictable Arc
• Manage a project
• Manage a slightly larger project
• Manage an even larger project
• Manage another large project, but with more politics
• Manage another larger project with even more politics
• Manage a really, really large project with really messy
politics
• Throw in extra uncertainty and risk on your next
mammoth project
• (repeat as necessary…)
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A Consequence Of Success

• A Perverse Reality Of The Universe Is That The Reward For

Doing Good Work Is…
• More work

• A Fundamental Truth: Good Project Managers Are Hard To

Come By
• Particularly ones that can embrace and succeed in environments of:
• Complexity
• Uncertainty
• Ambiguity
• Political volatility
• Pressure

• If You Are One Of These, You’re In Demand

• Become one of these and you WILL be in demand
• And the market for this sort of talent is not drying up any time soon…

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Another Consequence… Ownership

• A Perverse Outcome Of Managing A Project Is…

• Owning the thing we produce

• Often This Is A Result Of:

• Not having a clearly defined end point for the project
• Not having a clearly identified client to transition the project to
• Having become the expert in the thing that we have produced
• No one else wanting to take it on

• The Irony Is That We Start As A Project Manager

• And we assume operational ownership by default
• This becomes a very, very different role going forward

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Acknowledging Burnout

• Burnout Is Real
• And it has very real consequences

• It’s Difficult To Recognize (At Least At First)

• And often the solution is to dig deep and keep going

• The Symptoms Are Related And Point In A Similar

Direction
• These include:
• Exhaustion and malaise
• Detachment, negativity and resentment
• Lack of productivity (and procrastination and lack of
motivation)
• These orbit the domain of depression—and can lead there
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Dealing With Stress

• Even When We Don’t Attain Burnout, Stress Is Often A

Companion As Project Managers
• How we react to it depends on how we respond to it

• Many Of Us Claim To Be Motivated By It

• And there is a most definite truth to that—stress can be highly
motivating, and in useful and positive ways
• It can also be negative and destructive

• Stress Gets Magnified By Uncertainty And Ambiguity

• It is essentially framed by our ability to cope
• In essence, it is tied to the question “Do I have a handle on this?”

• Stress Also Gets Manifested Physically

• And in the long term can lead to harm if not managed well
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Sustaining Ourselves As PMs

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How Do I Keep Going?

• Asking This Question Means Something On Its Own

• It’s at the very least a nudge to check in on where you are
at, and how you are doing
• Are you happy?
• Are you connected?
• Are you thriving?
• Are you excited about what’s next?

• Where The Answer Is “No” Or “I’m Not Sure”, You’ve

Got Some Work To Do
• (That’s not meant to lead to more stress).
• You need to explore what’s missing, and why
• And then identify what you want to do about it
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Recognize What You Love

• A Fundamental Question Is “Why Did You Become A

Project Manager?”
• Hence the observations in the first section

• In Particular, What Excited You About Being A Project

Manager?
• Are you still getting that?
• Are you still excited by it?
• Are you feeling pulled (or pushed) in different directions?
• Is a change something that feels appealing and desirable?
• How much of a change does that feel like?

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Acknowledge What Frustrates You

• What’s Getting In The Way?

• Why are you feeling restless or unsatisfied?
• What are the situations where you find yourself resentful, frustrated or
angry?
• What are the situations where you feel listless and bored?

• All Of These Are Indicators

• They may be fundamental problems
• More importantly, they may also be symptoms of something else
• Surface frustrations that show up because we’re hiding something
deeper and more significant

• Spend Some Time Wrestling With This

• Accept that there is work you need to do
• Be comfortable with the fact that figuring it out might take a little time

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Exploring The Sweet Spot

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Exploring The Real Sweet Spot

• We Think We Need Balance

• For many of us, what we actually thrive on is challenge
• Particularly those of us who have made it into the project
management world
• It’s why we found it
• It’s what excited us in the first place

• What We Really Need Is “Flow”

• Challenge, yes, but a specific threshold of challenge
• Difficult enough to be a stretch
• Close enough to our skills that—with effort—we can be
successful

• That’s A Narrow Pathway

• Either side of it lies either malaise or debilitating stress

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Reframe Where You Want To Go

• Take Stock Of Where You Are

• The successes and the challenges
• The aspirations and the frustrations

• Think About What’s Meaningful To You Now

• What makes the most sense—and is most appealing—for where you
go from here
• What you want to learn and explore
• The skills you want to develop and exercise
• The challenges you want to confront and tackle
• The teams and people you want to work and engage with
• Then Think About What Will Get You There

• We Often Frame This As Work

• But it doesn’t have to be about work, necessarily
• It may continue, enhance, augment or simply sit beside what we do for
a living
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Negotiate Getting There

• What Do You Need To Do To Get There?

• Who do you need to negotiate with?
• Do you just need to put yourself on notice?
• Recognizing that can actually be the harder thing to do

• Be Clear About What Change Looks Like

• What are those considerations?
• What do you need to do—or do differently—in order to get there?

• Negotiate Wants And Needs

• We are used to accommodating the wants and needs of others
(sponsors, team members, stakeholders and more)
• It is not only normal but entirely appropriate and reasonable to have
wants and needs of our own
• The challenge is being confident to express them and get them met

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In Conclusion…

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In Conclusion…
• How We Think About Sustainability Is An Importance
• We often substitute it with ‘endurance’ or ‘stamina’
• There are very different implications on the toll that perception
places on us
• Why We Became Project Managers Varies
• Whether challenge, variety, opportunity or because we just found it
• Sustaining that over time is going to be challenging for anyone
• What We Want Out Of Project Management May Change
• And what project management wants of us may also change
• Or worse, be exactly the same, over and over again
• We Need To Define Where We Want To Go Next
• What are the opportunities that will keep us engaged?
• What changes are required to realize those opportunities?
• What support do we need to negotiate with others (and ourselves)?
• What are our wants and needs in order to get there? 32
Q&A

Can I Keep Doing This?

33
Questions?

• Quick Review: Process to Pose a Question

• Questions?

Mark E. Mullaly, PMP

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35
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Mark Your Calendars!

Project HEADWAY

How Should We Be Managing Quality?

Thursday, 16 May 2019

@ 3:00 PM EST

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