Everything I Know About Project Time Management I Learned In Sports Car Racing!

[Stacy Goff]

(originally posted on the asapm Members Only site January 13, 2009)
Hi asapm members! This Blog Post introduces a new feature for our collaboration site. We are posting an article here that will be in the newsletter at the end of the month, and asking you to comment on it.

As a teaser, we post the first part of the article, then if you are
interested, you can download it using the link below. Review it! Comment
on it!

The Article Intro:
The parallels between managing a successful project (including meeting
due dates) and managing a successful sports car racing campaign are
striking. In this article, we explore those parallels, and the insights
to be gained even by those who have never experienced life “at
speed”.

Background: for six years, from 1975 through 1981, the author
raced in Sports Car Club of America’s West Coast circuit. While this was
amateur racing, we competed with professional teams, who were funded by
the factories. The rationale: excel on the track on the weekend, and
buyers will flock to the showrooms to buy the cars the following week.
And it worked!

We were occasionally successful competing with professional teams, but
our greatest success came from a more-level playing field—Showroom
Stock, where The Great Racing Rabbit set lap records on every
track it ran, and was undefeated in three years of the toughest
competitions West of the Mississippi. It is from these experiences that
we can distill the essence of managing project time.

That is the intro. Download the article, in pdf format, from the asapm
website. Then give us your comments!

[Stacy Goff]

Note: These are the responses to this article, when originally posted at asapm:
Comment by Maria Matarelli on January 13, 2009 at 9:13pm
I really liked this article. The analogy to auto racing was well articulated. I especially liked the part about 'failing small'. Sometimes, one must resort to trial and error and the best lessons are our stumbling blocks or failures, but if you can work things out at a low expense, then you can apply that on a bigger scale.

Comment by Scotty Bevill on January 13, 2009 at 10:24pm
i appreciate the analogy to assist others in associative learning. The fact not everyone will understand the dynamics of auto racing, I think the supporting comments taken from Project Management allow for a bridge to understanding "the race." Thanks for the perspective and conversation starter. We've been talking about your article here at the house for 30 minutes or better.

Comment by Erik Hamburger on January 13, 2009 at 11:53pm
This article shows that project management is not the exclusive domain of an organisation that can only be practised if and the practitioner has studied a codex of knowledge. It shows that PM is truly daily stuff.

Comment by Alex S. Brown, PMP IPMA-C on January 13, 2009 at 11:56pm
I know a race car driver from a local Toastmasters meeting, and I appreciate the comments on "teamwork". This individual NEVER says "I won a race", he always talks about the victory of the team. The driver has an important role, but without the pit crew, people watching the track, the coach talking in his ear about turns and competition, and all the other people who help out, the driver would never succeed.

One item that was not in the article -- communication. We all know how important it is for project managers to communicate. Racing crews go through incredible lengths to keep good communication. Despite the roar of engines and the chaos of the track, they are always working to communicate by sight, touch, and sound. Without great communication, the team cannot work together, and the team wins the race, not the driver alone.

Nice article, and I enjoyed learning a little more about Stacy. If you are ever in New Jersey and want to connect with some people to do go cart racing on a real track, let me know!

Comment by Stacy (Admin) on January 14, 2009 at 9:50am
Thank you, Maria, Scotty, Erik and Alex, for your comments. And it looks like I need to obtain several more IPMA Lapel Pins, so more people get the chance to earn one. I'll bump the number to 8, and go beg IPMA for more.

As to Alex's great point: you are correct about the role and importance of Project Communication; but here was a challenge. Florian Dorrenberg and I wrote 35 pages on Project Communication for the Germany NCB (to be published this Spring). I needed this article to focus on Project Time Management. If you review my article stream on the asapm website, you will see that I am writing one about each Knowledge area. I will distill a 4-6 pager just on Communication when the Germany NCB comes out.

BTW, you probably know that some of the best Formula One drivers started in go-carts. Thanks again for the great comments! And soon I will have supply for three more...

Comment by Dan McKee on January 14, 2009 at 9:51am
Stacy, Excellent article. It was refreshing seeing PM principles applied in an out of the box application.
I use PM principles in my financial services business as well and find what I have learned in the PM discipline is applicable in many areas of my life.
I think you have hit upon something here in noting that the application of PM principles is not only applicable to the standard projects, but also in many other phases of business and personal life.....thanks...dan mckee

Comment by Les Squires on January 14, 2009 at 11:13am
Super good article! I particularly liked the point that the WHOLE TEAM drives the successful car!

Comment by Edward Fern on January 14, 2009 at 8:25pm
Stacy,

Our friend Vladimir Liberzon has told me that he learned everything he knows about project management during the Soviet era when his hobby was mountain climbing in the Urals. To get government approval for his expeditions, he and his fellow climbers were required to submit a written plan describing what they were trying to do, describing the resources they would take with them, and describing the threats they envisioned and their mitigation/contingency plans to manage them. I think y9ur stories have several common threads.

Everything I know about project management, I learned while serving as the volunteer president of a homeowners' association. Our neighborhood was about 50 years old and a bit run down. The folks who were selling homes were either on their way to a retirement home or a mortuary. Young people could afford the houses because of their condition. We launched a set of little projects to inspire pride of ownership before inviting the city in to conduct a minimum housing code inspection and enforcement program. Managing volunteers over whom I held absolutely no power beyond persuasion was, and remains, the best learning experience of my life.

I think I'm saying that most of what we do in life that is worthwhile comes to a project or set of projects. We learn from doing them, though that is the painful way to learn.

Thanks for your great article.
Ed

Comment by Stacy Goff on January 14, 2009 at 10:01pm
Thank you, too, Dan (an asapm founder and first Secretary-Treasurer), Les, our collaboration guru, and Ed (our asapm conscience). Ya know, this is the most interaction we've had in a short period of time since we started this new version of the Members Only site. We have lots of ideas for how to continue it, including a challenge: in this same vein, how do your everyday experiences contribute to your insights into managing projects? Rose has even suggested that we publish a book of the best articles of 2009. Who else is willing to contribute your inspirations? Your ideas, your articles, and your inspirations are welcome. Ed gets the last IPMA Lapel pin for this round.

[Stacy Goff]

Update, 2010:
Since this rapid exchange about the "Everything I know About Project Time Management..." article, the original has been re-published in Russian by the Russian IPMA Member Association SOVNET, and in Italian by the IT-oriented PM organization there, ISIPM.