The Cranes of Singapore

This past week I was waiting for a meeting to start high above downtown Singapore. I looked out the window and counted at least 15 cranes within a few blocks of the Suntec Tower One. Market crash? Downtown in global economy? Life goes on. Business goes on. Building goes on so far. The sun still rises each day, even if overspeculation and loose credit rules have conspired with the greedy to wipe trillions off global stock exchanges. Project managers still lead the resources for accomplishment of work in portfolios, programs and projects.

Singapore construction cranes. Cranes that tower over the skyline. Asian cranes. Beautiful birds in flight or standing still. Legends, in literature, sculpture and painting in Asia. In some Asian martial arts the crane is a mascot if you will. Great lessons are learned from observing both the beauty and actions of the birds. A crane's meaning to a particular martial art will mean BALANCE among other things as in the story below:

The Fāng family lived in Fujian, a province of China, in a place where there were manycranes. Qīniáng's father knew the Southern Chinese martial arts and taught them to his daughter. One day, while Qīniáng was doing her chores, a crane alighted nearby. Qīniáng tried to scare the bird off using a stick and the skills she learned from her father but whatever she did, the crane would counter. Qīniáng tried to hit the crane on the head, but the bird moved its head out of the way and blocked the stick with its wings. Qīniáng tried to hit the crane's wings, but the crane stepped to the side and this time blocked with the claws of its feet. Qīniáng tried to poke the crane's body, but the crane dodged backwards and struck the stick with its beak. From then on, Qīniáng carefully studied the movements of cranes and combined these movements with the martial arts she learned from her father, creating the White Crane style of Fujian Province.

Balance is essential in portfolio management on Wall Street as well as portfolio management of the projects you have under management now. Right now Project Managers are still managing portfolios of projects globally. Many are doing more with less. Less budget. Fewer people. Maybe aging IT infrastructure or telecom assets. Maybe postponing the start of new projects until risk can be lowered, and operating cash flows restored.

What is the solution? Who will be the hero and provide balance as Project Manager, if anyone?

I would refer you back to your original Project Charter, Project Plan and Master Schedule. I suggest that you ensure that your day-to-day tasking, whether it be design, development, or operations comply with those original "living" documents.

Balanced. Optimized. Aligned.

If not, you may want to perform a very quick assessment to find out how far off the critical path you have gone for your project. What will it take to get in back on track? What will that cost? Who will you need on the team to get it done? How long will it take?

Maybe you are not a hero. Maybe you are a crane. You have the balance, and the tactics to block bad moves aimed at your project and restore the project to its own balanced actions. A crane, rather than looking good standing still, is balanced and fierce in actions taken to reconfigure project performance. You are a crane!

Have a relaxing weekend. Let me know what you think as you have time...

Regards,

Rick