Project Management and the Corn Maze – Which Way Do You Turn Next?
This past weekend, I took my twin three year old daughters to walk through a corn maze in a local farming community in Washington state. Upon entry to the maze, I was handed a map – which I refused to use at first. After 40 minutes or so, we were LOST and the kids were muddy, tired and ready to be done. At this point, I finally decided to pull out the map. 5 minutes later we were out of the maze and eating corn dogs. The kids were happy and the corn dogs were good (even though we try not to eat them too often)! On a related note, many projects seem to linger on through a maze of complexity without clear direction and without a clear road map. When presented with two options, project managers often choose the wrong one and wind up where they do not want to be. How Can This Be Avoided? By defining sequential steps and clear ‘rules of the game’ up front, many wrong moves can be avoided throughout the life of a project. By knowing the destination and following step-by-step plans to get the
