You might be a PM if…
Fun compile of a lengthy thread on an internal discussion list (thanks Eric!) :)
You might be a PM if…
- ... someone asks about your weekend plans and your answer consists of a list of Pri ones, twos, and threes.
- ... you’ve ever ended a relationship using a PowerPoint presentation.
- ... you shape your wedding plans around product releases.
- ... you can use all of the features of PowerPoint.
- ... you fail to associate ‘specs’ with ‘glasses’.
- ... you write a post mortem about every major decision in your life.
- ... you refer to your family and friends as “actors”.
- ... you spend your evenings and weekends making tons of candy because you had to bribe the engineers complete their tasks on time.
- ... you spend an inordinate amount of time thinking about how to rearrange the trash cans in the cafeteria to make the flow more efficient.
- ... you end every discussion with “so what are the next steps?”.
- ... when using a new website, you think this site would be a lot better if they just did ______.
- ... you are the one proposing and planning that great last Spring Break trip to your friends.
- ... you use Excel spreadsheets and random column sorting to choose your newborn child’s name.
- ... you use the term "ask" as a noun.
- ... you have a 5 phase plan for your Saturday night date.
- ... you’re adept at using rules to manage massive low-pri e-mail threads.
- ... you tell your wife/husband/partner that you simply can’t “grok” what he/she’s saying.
- ... you talked about the dogfood you ate yesterday to your girl friend at dinner.
- ... you know how many cycles you have available to do something.
- ... you set KPIs as part of a marriage proposal or acceptance.
- ... you conduct a post–mortem and it does not involve dead bodies.
- ... you’re wondering if there’s a process you can introduce to tame this e-mail beast.
- ... you’ve been called “bossy” by more than one person.
- ... you're constantly clarifying the difference between a risk and an issue.
- ... you ask your wife/husband/partner for their plan (when building your garden box).
- ... upon hearing a mere suggestion, you respond with “that’s a great idea, can I assign that action item to you?”.
- ... you're sending out status reports on everything you do, to your stakeholders – including your spouse, you are a lifetime PM.
- ... you plan your life with a detailed Project file... and it never reflects your real life.
- ... you go to a meeting and start with “I don't have much to say today” and then keep speaking for an hour.
- ... you use the words orthogonal, oarp, triage, long pole, milestone, or grok in daily conversation (and all in the same day).
- ... you use more three letter acronyms than actual words.
- ... you answer email after everyone else goes to bed.
- ... you answer email before anyone gets up.
- ... you complete a spec, review 5 others, triage dozens of bugs, plan a hotfix release, send status reports, schedule two meetings, drive two other meetings, and attend a customer conference call – before lunch.
- ... while ending a domestic phone conversation, you summarize the conversation and state the open points... Everyone in your house gives you a meaningful look and talk in whispers after you leave the room and giggle.
- ... you tend to identify the risks in everything you do and then start looking for workarounds/mitigations.
- ... if at every review cycle you KNOW there will be negative feedback from someone you irked for having to bird-dog them, and … if you learn to appreciate the description of you as “too direct”.
- ... break out in sweat when your spousal unit does not calculate the most efficient route for the weekend errands.
- ... you calculate the critical path for your weekend errands.
- ... if you actually know how to herd cats.
- ... if you buy a Karaoke machine and have 300+ songs organized in a pivot that you print & give to your guests at your spouse’s birthday the following Saturday night.
- ... if your wife is pregnant, you prepare a project plan with the doctor and hold him accountable is she is not tracking as per plan.
- ... if you talk to dev like a dev and talk to test like a test.