A ROLE MODEL

If we are looking for a project manager to act as a role model, we can do no better than to look at some of those old cattle-drive Westerns with John Wayne as the trail boss. (You could also read Lonesome Dove (McMurtry, 1990).) I'm sure we're all familiar with the scenario: several thousand head of cattle have to be driven from the Rio Grande to a railhead, usually either Kansas City or Abilene, and the entire film then consists of all the incidents that occur on the way.

If we compare the jobs on your job list to the cattle in the cattle drive, then we have a very good analogy for how projects actually proceed. At any given time in the cattle drive, we can probably identify a steady state situation something along the following lines.

Most of the herd are heading generally in the direction of Abilene. (This excludes the mandatory stampede sequence where the entire herd heads off to some place entirely different. Hopefully you will never have a stampede on one of your projects!)

While the majority of the herd are behaving themselves , it is however probably safe to assume that some of the herd are heading backwards to the Rio Grande “ they have no plans to go to Abilene or any place the trail boss (John Wayne) has in mind for them. Others have drifted off to a gulch (ravine) where they've found some sweet grass and are grazing contentedly. Others are at a watering hole and are keeping cool, and haven't the slightest interest in getting back on the march under a hot sun. Finally, some cattle have perhaps wandered on ahead and been rustled.

John Wayne, meanwhile, spends the entire film riding around the herd, bringing up the stragglers, scouting on ahead for trouble, and generally making sure that all the cattle are headed for Abilene.

Without wishing to labor the analogy any more, this is exactly what the project leader has to do “ to make sure that all the jobs are being pushed forward, and that the entire herd of jobs is moving in the right direction.

Note, too, that if you decide to be this kind of project leader then this may well generate more jobs for your job list. The logic is simple and unfaultable: if you want a successful project, then any job that is required for the success of the project is your responsibility. Whether these jobs are formally your responsibility or not; whether the people doing them lie directly under your control or are peers, superiors or members of different organizations entirely; irrespective of any of these considerations, the jobs involved become part of your herd and you have to make sure they happen. I'm not saying you do them. Not at all. What I am saying, though, is that you have to cause them to happen. And not doing so will be no consolation. If the project ends unsuccessfully, then it'll be small consolation to be able to say "well, that wasn't my job."

To repeat the point once more so as to make it crystal clear and unambiguous: if you want a successful project, then any job required for that success is the project leader's responsibility, and she has to take it under her wing and take it forward. This is what being the one leader means.