The Black Arts Handbook, Secret #1: Numbers

There is a mystery to what distinguishes great Project Managers from the merely good. CounterSoft,  has researched far and wide, risking the wrath and scorn of the Inner Circle of Project Managers to bring you secrets that are never spoken and knowledge that is not taught in any school.

Before we go any further; a warning. You already know the things that are in the Black Arts Handbook, just as you would know about gravity even if you had no word for it. These things we will tell you about were always there, you just had to open your eyes and ears to see and hear them.

Secret Art #1: The Power of Numbers

It is a natural human instinct to avoid risk and the way to do that as a Project Manager is to slice, dice and scope your project into manageable chunks. That is all very well, but such activities confer no power on the Project Manager. At the same time as you chop the project up into tasks and activities you must focus on the big picture, and the one thing about it that confers near magical powers upon you - the number!

If something is worth doing then it is usually because there is a commercial value in doing it. Many Project Managers ignore this, look instead for some fuzzy, altruistic goal, and therefore lose their place in the big picture and the power that accompanies 'big picture knowledge'. Here's an example of what we mean by the power of the number: when the Development Team Leader wants to block your access to his best DBA you need to be able to slap him over the head with the size of the number you are carrying around in your back pocket.

"This is a $50 million project and you want to put some junior DBA on it?"

See?

Do you see how powerful that statement is?

"You want to jeopardise $50 million" is a far more powerful statement to make to your Team Leader/Director/Manager than "we're running behind schedule and could really do with some help here". Why is this so? Well, the answer is simple, so simple that as we said right at the start, you already know it.

The "number" is the modern-day equivalent of the King's Seal. In the old days Kings would get the Barons to obey their instructions, conveyed by an emissary who might otherwise have found himself headless, simply by giving said emissary the royal seal. The number, in today's parlance, is the seal! Don't avoid it; rather seek it out, the bigger it is the better it is for those who know its uses. A big number could only have been generated by, and is the property of, the most powerful people behind the project. Knowing the number and carrying it around, makes you their emissary and anyone who messes with you messes with them.

Remember to always treat the number as if it is your responsibility to deliver it. It is yours, the precious... it calls... it promises everything...    

Harvey Kandola is a technologist and certified PRINCE2 project manager, currently leading CounterSoft,  makers of Gemini Project Management software. He can be reached at sales@countersoft.com.

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