May 11 – Journal Entry

FML – I ate lunch after 4:00 pm yesterday. That’s how busy it was, and the one thing I wanted to didn’t get done until really late. I think I started creating the deck for the reorg project after 8:00 pm and I worked on it to ~ 1:30 am. (I know that’s not good) – I worked 14.5 hrs yesterday.

I was so busy – I’m writing my journal today, May 12.

Yesterday during our Exec meeting, my boss started talking about when he was a project manager and started asking about a project charter for a particular project. Not all organizations create a project charter, and we never decided what our standards are for project documentation as an organization + all projects require tailoring and that tailoring is driven by the risk and complexity associated with the project. I find it interesting that he was talking about a project charter when we have other projects that are just as important, and charters weren’t created for those.

A stale, point in time, document isn’t going to solve the problems are having on this project – We need to be disciplined ourselves and take the time required to plan properly, which is something we never (maybe rarely) do because we are thinking about the revenue.

That is a culture that I struggle in, because I am accustomed to proper planning. I am working to change that and mature our processes – Good news, we are better than we were two years ago – my anniversary was May 7. At the same time, I feel like how he did it is wrong, you say you are not calling anyone out but you are. My role on the project in question is administrative, but at the same time, as the PMO head, I feel responsible and I am accountable.

I need to speak up more, but I often feel intimidated by my boss (this is the same boss that I love). When he’s around, I can’t be my assertive self. He talks fast, and I think slow. I feel like there is a pervasive blame culture, finger pointing, but we are working through that as well. He talks fast, and I think slow. But at the same time, I’m glad I wasn’t an asshole and say shit I might have regretted. (kudos to my restraint – at this same time though, this happened yesterday, and I am still thinking about it – I hate that.)

We all live in our own reality – and his truth says we should have had a charter. Mine says we didn’t need one because we had other documents to substitute. Plus when I inherited the project, I had to work on the WBS, estimates, schedule, and the RTM – which made more sense, because those things are required to get us on track and keep us there.

FYI – I love this pic (made it my feature pic too). It’s kinda how I feel. There’s a storm brewing, there’s a rainbow and below all of that, it’s calm – Yes. I can be a calm magnificent storm all at once and it is alright.