Every once in a while you have this surreal moment where you can see just how quickly your life is passing you by!
Image credit: GIPHY.com with source credit to Warner Bros Entertainment Inc.
I don’t know how you are feeling but I have no idea how it is already May 30!
Nevertheless we shall forge ahead!
This week I’m loving
You know sometimes you just find those little gems in your inbox that feel like you read them at exactly the right time? Well here’s my revelation for this week (with thanks to the ever wise Ozan Varol) in case you have been feeling like I have:
What if desire isn’t a problem to solve?
What if desire itself is the prize?
Yes, the thing you want isn’t here. But the possibility is.
The aliveness it stirs in you—that’s already happening. That’s yours now.
This isn’t about giving up action or ambition—it’s about reclaiming the magic we’ve been rushing past.
Desire, when you fully feel it, is delicious. Sometimes, it even tastes better than getting what you want. Because reality may not match fantasy. So why rush toward the end? Why not savor the magic that’s here now?
As a generalist I think it is easy for us to get caught up in navigating and forget that the ocean we are sailing is a stunning ride along the way. So this week I encourage you to take a breath, feel that desire you’ve been pushing down deep hoping it will go away… and instead, lean into it. Welcome its aliveness. Because when you do, you might find a whole new level of what you bring to the world. And that’s your magic.
From the Practice
This week I’m highlighting a thought-provoking article from a powerhouse I greatly admire for her incredible workplace advocacy: Dawn M. Hunter.
As a project manager, what is time?
I know, it’s a loaded question, but I think we should spend a moment reflecting on this.
First, there’s your time — a life spent serving the needs of others; jumping from meeting to meeting, need to need, emergency to emergency — a life spent building some of the world’s greatest accomplishments silently behind the scenes — are you spending your time the way you want?
Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about this and finding myself pondering new motivations that are among the most fulfilling of my career. As Generalists, maybe we find time to do what matters in time. The richness is in the meandering, not the destination.
Next, there’s the time we manage. That of those working around us. That of organization’s striving to fulfill their dreams. The time of the loved ones who tolerate our crazed late night deliveries and unruly deadlines. Here is something I found very interesting.
On page 18 of the PMBOK® (Project Management Body of Knowledge) 7th edition there’s a tiny but loud statement that reads:
Time fragmentation reduces productivity, so shielding the project team from non-critical, external demands helps the project team stay focused.
One could think of a project manager’s job as the time fragmenter!
Image credit: Planio
Chief Breaking the Idea Down into Executable Chunks; Master of the Release Packages; Resource Scheduling Guru… you get the picture.
In fact, not only are we offenders on this front, we live and breathe Gantt charts, timeboxes, increments, iterations, sprints, ceremonies, and schedule variances.
But:
Image credit: The Better Boundaries Brief
Wait… you said we need to enable employees to have a sense of predictability, flexibility, and sufficient time for daily recovery…
What if this is actually how we should “manage time” as a project manager?
How can we create predictability, flexibility, and work-life balance for project teams racing to deliver some of the toughest and best things humanity has produced yet?
I think the answer might lie, not in thinking about time, but in thinking about flow. And I’ve been practicing and refining this idea in my agile practices for a few years now, with pretty good results.
First defined by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi in the 1970s the concept of “flow” is essentially a state of being where an individual maximizes their engagement and personal fulfillment with a task at hand through aligning with skills and abilities and applying intense concentration. It is felt that flow state causes a distortion in the perception of time and many positive psychology experts believe this leads to greater satisfaction in work and in life even in highly “busy” or occupied people.
An environment that promotes a flow state will feature the following:
Clear goals
A deep sense of involvement
Immediate feedback
A balance between challenge and skill
An interplay between absorption and reward
In her article, Dawn has this incredible reminder for us:
Time can be a thing we manage, but it's also a boundary, a resource, and a right.
In my agile practice, even where I’m practicing Scrum (which arguably can be viewed as a time fragmentation problem), here’s what I do to promote flow instead:
View sprints and ceremonies as boundaries that we use for check-ins and alignment, not completion.
Consistently and doggedly set and reflect on clear goals (every daily scrum assesses the Sprint Goal and progress toward it).
Transparently share strategy, mission, and feedback to ensure a sense of involvement.
Foster psychological safety to ensure highly skilled people can safely challenge each other while collaborating productively.
Engage the right stakeholders in every Sprint Review to ensure the team always has immediate feedback on work ready for inspection.
Practice Retrospectives religiously to cultivate immediate peer feedback and maintain a high-performance environment.
Deliver incrementally to ensure the team feels the reward of their effort
Prioritize effective ceremonies while minimizing other interruptions to ensure team members can work hard and play hard.
Because at the end of the day for all of us:
Time is a non-renewable resource. What we do with it - and how much control we have over it - isn’t just a personal decision.
An interesting read
At the heart of every strong organization are two intertwined forces: a meaningful mission and the human relationships that carry it forward.
This week’s interesting read brought to you by Mike Fisher at Fish Food for Thought reminds every project manager of the secret ingredients to high-performing teams:
High-quality leader-member exchange
Strong relationships founded in mutual trust
Team members who feel understood, energized, and committed
A meaningful mission
Shared adversity
Managers are not just stewards of performance, they are the day-to-day stewards of culture itself. Their choices, to encourage or dismiss, to invest or to neglect, become the lived experience of every individual they lead.
A tip
Looking for a framework that supports high-quality stakeholder management? Martin Ilumin has a great tip for you here.
A lesson
I loved this great little article that uses McDonald’s Corporation as a illustrative lesson on the elements of a great PMO. Bonus points to this team for also promoting the importance of a good Playbook to a successful PMO. Read and enjoy!
In this issue of the Generalist PM you’ll note I used my beloved em dash. Despite its recent reputation, real writers still use this effectively and I’m one of those. I’m not giving it up just because there’s some new machine-based fad. The Generalist PM is always authentically me. No AI, no artificial assistance, and 100% me.