USING PROJECT MANAGEMENT

The reason you are a god is that you have the standards of a god.
The reason you won an Olympic Gold Medal is that you stuck to the Olympic Gold Medal-level training system.
There is no mystery or magic to it. If you put in the work you get ahead.
Now to define the work: it means the mental labour, the emotional labour, the physical follow through and the regular checking back to see what is what.

One gathers that the idea behind project management is to have clear standards of accountability so if something is not done by such and such a date we know who is responsible and we know why.
Human nature will resist external accountabilities preferring to rely on self discipline. If you have the right habits or a team to keep you on the up and up then you are good. But note the Marines training program where groups of soldiers who get together for support and strength tend to make or through to the end of the program rather than individual soldiers without accountability or support.

It is not enough to aspire and to dream you must be responsible for what happens if your dreams do not come true or you fail and miss the target. It cannot be swept under the carpet or rolled on to next year's budget.

An external accountability means that you can only speak about what you are prepared to pay for. You must back up your words with action and examples. You can't just preach on the benefits of client service at your law firm or taking initiative by associates? Do you reward or punish accordingly when these ideas are demonstrated or violated? Any suspensions, raises, VIP tickets to see Saro, The Musical?
The only things that tend to happen are what you reward or closely monitor.
It is just like raising kids, you cannot utter empty threats and when you say 'if you cross this line I will smack you' and the child crosses the line, the smack must follow or else you confuse the child and you show her that you do not mean what you say.

In closing the three core parts of Project Management are
1. Project definition: State the project, develop objectives, breakdown work to achieve objectives, identify resource requirements.
2. Project planning: Assign responsibility, set schedule for completion of tasks and delivery of resources, prepare to address roadblocks.
3. Project implementation: put clearly understood objectives into play, monitor actual performance with the project plan, modify as necessary, evaluate after completion.