Friday, January 31, 2014

51: Principle and Process

The Project
I am on the (hopefully) final draft of ‘Project Program and Portfolio Management in easy steps’ and am just starting to send out the chapters for some peer review. I’ve re-worked chapter one about five times and think it’s about right but I’ll have to see what my peers think.

In chapter two I set out the baseline for project management so I can compare program and portfolio management to it. And yes I did start out by explaining the differences between project management and line (or process) management.  But for those who follow the Way everything is a process, including a project, so I did try to include that as well. 

The Way  
Taoists believe that all people have a natural reverence for the single principle and they therefore like processes which obey the single principle.  The principle and the process form a partnership which can take an infinite variety of forms and, as we all know in project management, no two projects are ever the same.  

Poor project managers try to force things to happen their way but they do not benefit from it and are therefore perceived to be poor project managers.  This partnership between principle and process is the first fact of life and forms the bedrock of our work as project managers.  

All things arise from the Tao.  
They are nourished by virtue.  
They are formed from matter.  
They are shaped by circumstances.  
Thus the ten thousand things respect Tao and value virtue.  

Respect of Tao and honor of virtue are not commanded,  
They happen naturally.  
Thus all things arise from Tao.  
By virtue they are nourished,  
Developed, cared for,  
Sheltered from harm.  
Creating without claiming ownership,  
Doing without taking credit,  
Guiding without interfering,  
This one might speak of as the primal virtue.  

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