A Lesson in Project Management from Automatic Sprinkler Systems

I recently moved into a new home that has an automatic sprinkler system. I broke down one day and read the manual (well, most of the manual) to try to understand how to program the thing. After I felt confident I understood the various zones of the yard, how long the water would be on in each zone, and the sequence of which zones were watered in what order and for how long, I stood gazing out my front window at 8:59 PM to admire my handy work and watch the sprinklers in zone four (a portion of my front yard) come on at 9:00 PM. I waited...checked the time on my BlackBerry...9:02...nothing...hmm...9:10 and still nothing...

I went to the garage to check the settings and sure enough it was supposed to start with zone four at 9:00 PM sharp on this day of the week.

It wasn't until I unpacked my atomic wall clock a few days later and decided to mount it next to the sprinkler control box in the garage that I thought to check the internal clock of said control box with the atomic clock. I found the times were not synchronized--not even close. Then I remembered how I'd unplugged the power cord for the control box in order to use that wall socket for another tool while doing yard work. The internal clock lost power during this time and when I plugged it back in again it simply picked up where it left off--but now a good chunk of time off track.

Then I thought about how that's like project management in a way. Let's say you're the PM and you've given a directive for a particular task to a project resource. You feel like you've spent the time to understand the big picture, you've worked through task precedence and resource leveling issues, and now you're going to sit back and watch the project begin to unfold according to plan. But it doesn't. You scratch your head. You go to the resource and they're shocked you think something is wrong. In their mind they are doing exactly what you asked them to do. But you forgot you "unplugged" at some point--you failed to keep in sync for a period of time. The resource begins working precisely at 9:00 PM (by his watch). But in reality, it's 10:17 PM.

Frequent check-ins with team members and status updates/real-time dashboards for stakeholders make sure everyone's watches stay synchronized and we're not all doing the right things at the wrong time or visa versa.