There’s No Crying in Project Management

Many of us have seen the movie A League of Their Own, where Tom Hanks plays the usually inebriated and always disinterested coach Jimmy Dugan of the WWII-era Rockford Peaches women’s baseball team. At one point during a league game, outfielder Evelyn starts crying after Jimmy yells at her for over-throwing the cut-off infielder, accusing her of squandering the team’s lead. He is exasperated and exclaims, “Are you crying? Are you crying? There’s no crying in baseball!”

 Columbia Pictures Corporation (1992)

There’s {usually} no crying in Project Management, either.

To be honest, I did cry once. Not too, too long ago but not at Dana-Farber, either. I won’t go into the details. I’m still pretty sure those NYS Hospice nurses didn’t really mean it and I only cried for a minute. Okay, for ten minutes. Tops. In the parking lot, on the phone with another hospice nurse. My wife, in fact. She managed to fit in over the breathless whimpers, “Are you crying? Are you crying? There’s no crying in Project Management!” So there you have it.

Last Thursday afternoon it could have happened again, this time on what is usually a fairly routine conference call about a highly visible and key IS project. Something went wrong, a complete blindside.

 Lawrence Taylor breaches quarterback Joe Theismann’s blindside on Monday Night Football, with devastating results. ABC Network (1985)

Blindsides are situations that project management professionals and their project teams spend countless hours and so much brain power and energy planning for, looking out for, anticipating, crafting management and mitigation strategies against. We don’t like them. Blindsides are kryptonite; they ruin your day. They might even make you cry.

I could’ve used a Michael Oher this last Thursday.

To me, the good news is that, should the tears have welled up, I was on a conference call, not face-to face. Phew. But a miracle happened. There was nary a tear to be found, not even a glimmer of a tear. When I picked my jaw up and asked some clarifying questions of the non-DFCI project stakeholder who delivered the blindside, I felt a strange calm drape over me. I knew hours of damage control work would immediately ensue (23 actual hours and counting, in fact) and that the weekend would be negatively impacted. Rather than feeling defeat I knew that quick, decisive communication and a damage mitigation plan would be the best path forward.

 Twentieth Century Fox (2006)

Yes, I did my best on-the-phone and out-of-sight The Devil Wears Prada “furled eyebrows, lips pursed in disgust” impersonation but I {mostly} moved on, pulled together our project team and other key stakeholders, put together a quick communication plan and communication mailing, and…gasp, moved on. Yes, very displeased and of course looking back for a hint of “How could we have seen this coming?” I don’t think we could have, but project managers always try.

That’s the thing about good project management and leadership in unexpected and stressful situations. It’s not easy, but it’s vital to remain calm and in control, for the benefit of one’s own well-being and for the benefit of others also impacted. Unexpected problems, especially big problems impacting dozens to hundreds of DFCI resources, can come on like a tornado. It’s hard to consider or admit, but some things are simply out of our control. Rather than get caught up in the wind-driven swirling shrapnel, I think we’ve done pretty well working through this current problem by trying to stay in the calm flow of the eye of the storm. We’ve made some immediate-need progress against this challenge and we will have to figure out some longer-term solutions and processes.

At least {this time} there was no crying in project management.