Project management

This stuff is hard.

I have a project at work right now, with a hard deadline, and I am the manager. I had no idea how I would like it, or if I'd be any good at it, since I've never done this before. I'm usually pretty happy in the creative underclass of a project, getting to think up ideas.

It is a lot of checking in with people, and although that can be tiring, in the sense that I am checking e-mail for work reasons from the time I wake up to when I go to sleep, it also means I am interacting with a lot of people again. That latter part has been really nice. I'd forgotten how much easier it is to be creative and productive, when you can bounce ideas off of others and are not the only one responsible for coming up with things. I've had some great 3 and 4 hours sessions of brainstorming, some really productive shorter meetings, and keeping motivated has been much easier.

But the looking up details, checking with people on small questions, keeping all the info together, that I'm not so sure about. Since this is a small project I think I can keep it all together pretty much as I did before - mostly in my head with a few things written down on paper and on my computer. Deadlines and such. This is because there aren't too many overlapping deadlines, and there are not so many different companies and entities that need to be coordinated, so an illness or a travel restriction is more easily negotiated.

I don't think I'm cut out for really large scale project management, though. I just don't know how much more rewarding it would be than draining. And I've only had a glimpse of having to depend on difficult personalities to get something done, and I defaulted to being very gracious when I probably should have stopped earlier and said "no, we have a tough deadline, and I really need you to do this as quickly as possible." I can tell I have very little idea about what constitutes a "right now!" need, and what can wait. And I tend to assume people will do things in the next hour when they say "right away" and that isn't necessarily the case. I'm not great at pressing people to clarify what they mean in these cases. Makes me really nervous. Not a great place to start for management.

What I do think I can do fairly well is be okay with "good enough." Don't get me wrong, I am infinitely able to be idealistic about things, about what could be if we just had enough time, good will, money. How people should behave. What the "right" way to do something is. But, when surounded by a few other pragmatic individuals, I can totally do the realist thing, too. And that surprised me. 

Anyway, it has been interesting. I will be happy when it is over. It will go on my resume.

And if this post has already put you to sleep, check out the Star Wars fan version online. The whole of Star Wars, made out of 15 second clips submitted to the project by everyday people. I watched only 6 minutes of it, but what great submissions, from a family of kids in paper towel Storm Trooper outfits, to an office of coworkers in white plastic salad bowl helmets, to animated sequences.