Captain Derek Silvercloud, Hero, Team Leader Extraordinaire

I'm a fan of science fiction. I love the way future technical, social and myriad other possibilities can be woven into stories that tell us about who we are and who we might be. But I've never been much of a fan of the fantasy side of science fiction. You know, with all the magic and elves and such.

I recently found myself reading just such a science fiction/fantasy novel, though. Actually, I started reading it once and, as soon as I encountered the elves and the magic, I put it aside. I am so glad I came back to it. Otherwise, I would have missed a fun reading experience centered around an almost perfect (he's only human, after all) example of a great team leader.

The book is Voidhawk by Jason Halstead and is available on Amazon in hard copy or as an eBook. It's the story (actually Book 1 of 4) of the captain and crew of the good ship Voidhawk as they sail the Void seeking a livelihood and finding plenty of adventure to go along with it.

In project management, servant leadership is a powerful concept for developing and leading a powerful project team. Captain Silvercloud  epitomizes that concept. Some examples (based on principles detailed in Absolute Beginner's Guide to Project Management,also available on Amazon) are:

• He always seeks to find what he can do to help his crew be successful at their jobs. He understands that he can't sail the ship on his own.
• He is always willing to listen to his crew. He shows remarkable patience with them, whether he agrees with their comments or not. He's smart enough to know that he may have to deal with the situation suggested by the comment regardless of how he feels about it.
• He puts himself in the others' situation and tries to understand how to make his interests also serve their interests.
• He accepts responsibility for the team's results. He takes initiative and steps into action when situations develop that are a threat to his team and their mission.
• He encourages collaboration and trust in all team members. Each team member is empowered to take action when they feel it is required for the success of the team.
• He fosters growth and improvement in every team member. Each individual is encouraged to find and use the unique skills that they can bring to the team.
• He seeks input and feedback from the team and any others whose interests are associated with the interests of the team. While he accepts the responsibility for making the decisions, he solicits team input to his decision making process.
• He finds ways to gain acceptance and action from team members and other's through influence and persuasion. Manipulation is avoided (except on the bad guys, of course, he's not perfect).
• He brightly illuminates a principle of strong integrity and uses his power in a strong but ethical way.

Following these principles, Captain Silvercloud takes a collection of leftover and salvaged equipment and people gathered from some unlikely sources and melds them into a ship and crew that is fiercely loyal to one another. The story illustrates that, in a collaborative and encouraging environment, even the least likely candidate can express a special talent that is of enormous value to the team.

It may not be classic literature and it does have a few problems, mostly editing. For instance, I think someone could have easily caught some of the typos with just one quick reading of the book. From what I've seen, this is a problem shared with many newer publications, but I still don't think it should be acceptable.

If you are a project manager (or not!) and you are looking for a fun read with a little magic and adventure, then here is a great choice  Add in consideration of the relevant pointers on leadership and team building and I think this would be a very enjoyable combination of diversion and educational experience.

Snoozing Projects

Over on  Gantthead.com, Wai Mun Koo posted an interesting article. In Snoozing Projects:, Wai Mun talks about the "Snooze Button Effect". Most of us have fallen into that morning trap. How many times have we taken "just" another 9 minutes, fully knowing that we should have gotten up when we said we should and gotten on with our day.

Here's part of his article:


Snoozing Projects

“Beep! … Beep! … Beep! …”

The cacophonous sound of the dreaded alarm clock pierced through my tympanic membranes shattering another ‘millionaire dream’ that I was having a moment ago. I wished I could have a gigantic hammer nearby to plunge the final silencing blow to the cussed alarm clock. “Time to wake up”, a voice echoed inside me. Reluctantly, I dragged myself out of the cozy queen-size bed to reach for the ‘Snooze’ button on the clock. I was glad that I have this ingenious snooze function in the new alarm clock that I bought recently (the previous one failed to survive the assault of a flying pillow). “Another five minutes”, I told myself. Then another five minutes after another five minutes and it went on and on…

In controlled amounts, in the mornings, it might not seem so bad. But one snooze today so easily becomes two snoozes tomorrow. At its worst, Wai Mun reminds us of the people who set the clock to alarm an hour earlier than required just so they can snooze through that extra hour. Neither he nor I know what is contained in that hour of repeated 9-minute snoozes, but for some people, it is irresistible.

The biggest problem with the snooze effect is that it is not limited to just waking up in the morning. We become addicted to it in all facets of our lives if we are not careful. And project managers may be especially vulnerable to it. Wai Mun points not only at the habit of constantly pushing the deadline "just a few days" further out, but also the practice of building "pad" time into the schedule as examples of the "Snooze Button Effect" in project management.

If we want to be Hero Project Managers, then we need to learn to discipline ourselves to avoid the Snooze Button. Work to finish on schedule without relying on "creeping" the deadline date to make us more comfortable. You may miss more deadlines that way, but you'll gain the discipline to be better at meeting them.

And, design honest schedules. Do your best to understand how much effort it will take to complete a project, know what the probabilities are that you can meet that schedule and lay it all on the table in advance.

Let's all strive to be Hero Project Managers.

Costs and Risks on Trans-Alaska Oil Pipeline

For several years I worked on the Trans-Alaska Oil Pipeline, first as a surveyor and later as a systems analyst. A few weeks ago, in my Controlling Project Costs and Risks class at University of California San Diego, we were assigned to write a short paper connecting a project with the class material. I chose to write about the pipeline project.

This was such a huge project, just the fact that it got completed implies that there were some heroes on the project management team. Think about up to 25,000 people working along a more than 800 mile long project completing hundreds of tasks that, in the everyday world, would be a large project in their own right. And, doing it all in some of the most extreme terrain and climate conditions to be found on earth.

I must admit, when I was there on the job, I didn't fully appreciate some of the points that I discuss in my paper. For instance, I always thought some of the personnel accommodations were, let's say, over-the-top. But, looking at it from the standpoint of managing costs and risks, I can see where it was probably less expensive to trade a little extravagance for the benefit of eliminating (almost) the possibility of work stoppages.

Here is my report, on which, by the way, I got a very good grade.

Controlling Costs and Risks in Construction of the Trans-Alaska Oil Pipeline

I hope you find it interesting.

I've written some of stories about my experiences on that job (and other experiences). Check them out at Weoka Creek to Sag River, and More: Stories From the Journey.

Holy Moses! The Original Hero Project Manager

In his recent article for
     titled  Holy Moses! How to Lead to the Promised Land,

Geoff Loftus wrote about Moses and his great project to lead the Israelites to the Promised Land. I had already been thinking about Moses as a part of another project, so it really caught my attention.

First, let's address the title of this blog. Was Moses the first Hero Project Manager? Why wouldn't God get that title?

Well, even with all the wonderful things that God brought forth, such as creating the Heaven and the Earth and all things in between, I wouldn't consider him a project manager. Being omniscient, he had no need for a detailed plan, he KNEW how to complete his undertaking. Being the source of all things, he had no budget and no concerns of resource shortages. Being eternal, he had no time constraint.

How about other project managers before Moses? Noah built The Ark to save two of every creature on earth from the coming flood. Joseph prepared a land of safe haven in Egypt for the Canaanites to escape the famine. Surely they could be candidates for the Hero Project Manager title.

But both Noah and Joseph managed projects with one great difference from Moses' project. They both had hope of enjoying the fruits of their labor. Moses, on the other hand, sacrificed any hope of personally making it to The Promised Land in a heated negotiation with his sponsor, God, over whether the people should all be smitten for their terrible transgressions, such as worshiping at the altar of the Golden Calf.

Even with no hope of reaching the project goal personally, Moses was still faithful to his commitment. He interceded with his sponsor on behalf of the clients and, alternatively, lead his team and stakeholders to understand unpopular conditions of that sponsor. He maintained his integrity throughout a long and arduous project, even when the goal seemed unreachable. While he was firm and resolute in his adherence to the plan, he also was flexible enough to allow his plans to change when new situations arose.

Moses completed his project successfully even though he faced some of the most extreme obstacles. His sponsor didn't just think he knew it all, he DID know it all. His path was blocked by some unimaginably difficult obstacles. His stakeholders often lost all interest in the project. Who would have blamed him for resigning.

He persevered, though, and his people reaped the untold rewards of his dedication.

Moses was truly a Hero Project Manager.

Project Manager for Heroes

Mike Pungercar, of Springfield, Oregon, is a Hero Project Manager. There's no doubt about it in my book.

I read about Mike's project in an article, Flights give vets the hero treatment, in the online edition of the Register-Guard of Eugene, Oregon. Mike is project manager for South Willamette Valley Honor Flight, a part of the nationwide Honor Flight project. This project's mission is to take veterans of World War II on a visit to the World War II Memorial in Washington, DC.

As we are reminded in the article, we are losing this generation of heroes at a rate of about 850 per day. The day will soon come when we will no longer be able to honor them in person. We'll only have the memories of their sacrifice. And, a little farther down the road, it will only be something to read about in history books.

Today, though, we are honored to still be able to know them, to speak with them and to express our gratitude for their service. Maybe their actions in the war were heroic, or maybe they were only relatively routine. But, as far as I'm concerned, they all played an important part in an effort that helped preserve our way of life, our world.

My father fought in the South Pacific as a tail gunner for the Army Air Corps and later as a member of the Military Police corps. He was involved in action all along the chain of islands that lead from Wake Island around the southern rim of the Pacific through New Guinea and Guadalcanal, finally ending up in Tokyo. He didn't talk much about it. When he did,  at the time, I didn't realize just what he had gone through. Now, in retrospect, I am sad that I didn't understand, while he was here, what he experienced. I know I still don't fully grasp it. I've not been in combat situations, so I can't grasp it.

At least, thanks to books and movies and other sources, I do better understand what he and so many other men and women did for us. Daddy died over thirty years ago, before I understood, as I do today. I never paid him, in person, the honor he deserved.

So, Mike Pungercar is a Hero Project Manager. A hero for heroes.

And, today, I promise I will, in some way, contribute to Mike's project. Will you?

6 Project Leadership Super Powers - PM Hut

On the blog Project Management Hut Ty Kiisel posted an article, 6 Project Leadership Super Powers, that ties in nicely with the theme of this blog. While I contend that we all need to be heroes and avoid trying to be superheroes, Ty makes a good case for trying to make sure we do our best to fit these six "super powers" into out project manager tool kit.

Here's the opening paragraph.It is an interesting and fun-to-read article.

6 Project Leadership Super Powers

April 17, 2012 | Author: PM Hut | Filed under: Leadership

6 Project Leadership Super Powers

By Ty Kiisel

My friends and I will sometimes debate whether Superman or Batman is the more interesting superhero. Technically, I guess Batman isn’t a superhero at all, he’s just a very disturbed guy who has the ability to create some incredible crime-fighting gadgets that make him appear to be a superhero (he’s my choice for most interesting superhero, by the way).

Superman, on the other hand, has a number of very incredible superpowers that make him more than a match for the average villain. The “Man of Steel” is too squeaky-clean and unbeatable to be really interesting in my opinion. Give me a flawed, kind of messed-up superhero for real “interesting” potential.

A couple of years ago I came across...

Was Benjamin Franklin a Hero Project Manager

Most Americans would agree that Benjamin Franklin was a hero. Among so many other things, he was instrumental in the founding of our country, the United States of America. He is certainly one of my heroes.

Without studying his project management abilities very deeply, I can guess that his character traits would have made him an excellent PM. But he was certainly not a superhero. In reading about him, he didn't seem to try to be. Even in his own writings, he admits that he was constantly struggling to learn to apply the qualities of a strong character to his life. He wanted to consciously practice desirable character traits until they became so deeply a part of his character that he unconsciously practiced them. They ultimately became, not traits he tried to exhibit but, traits he possessed in his core being.

Benjamin Franklin worked to ingrain within his character traits such as integrity, responsibility, commitment, humility, patience and courage. He monitored his actions and interactions with others to determine if he was successfully applying those traits. He sought ways to correct any tendencies to stray from those principles of good character. He was committed to becoming a man of good character.

In an article that I found through LinkedIn's Toastmasters Int group, Wyn N. Davies asks Are You a Pilgrim or a Tourist? Wyn speaks of life in general, but his message applies to us as project managers directly. Are you just a tourist in the role of project manager? 


Or are you a pilgrim, committed to BEING a project manager. If so, you will follow Benjamin Franklin's example and constantly try to build into your core character those traits that make us heroes. Traits such as cooperation, sound reasoning, perseverance and integrity. 


With that commitment you will be someone's project management hero.