Making a Meal Out of Project Management

Project management lessons can be found in different areas of life. Take a waiter or manager at a restaurant, they solve project management challenges every day at every table.

Say a restaurant is short staffed in the front of the house and is also short staffed in the kitchen. It takes 40-minutes to get food. How did the restaurant handle this? They apologized and offered a free drink. Though not all the customers appreciated this. One table waited 40-minute for some soup and the offer of a free drink was met by, “we just bought one.” The result was a disgruntled customer who probably won’t be back and will take to social media to complain. Another table waited 40-minutes for food and were also offered a free drink. They accepted the free drink and then were told there was an error with the system and the restaurant explained it was their own fault, the meal came at no charge. The end result was a happy customer.

What can we learn from this experience?

Consistency- Each project (table) should be given appropriate time and effort. With projects, priority should be given to projects with strategic value and deadlines must be considered. In this case both projects (tables) were of equal importance and needed equal treatment.
 
Communication- The restaurant was upfront about the delays. When projects hit a problem PMs should communicate with stakeholders about delays and actions being taken. The truth lands you in less trouble than lies and cover ups.

Transparency- The restaurant was quick to take responsibility. They followed through with the promise and the meal was on them. The waiter was open about the situation and keeping customers updated.

Planning- In IT projects you need the right staff just like a kitchen. Failure to do this risk completing the project. In project management every skill and part of the process can now be bought in as a service.

Control- At the restaurant the staff was not fully in control of the situation. No control means no assurance of success. Milestones need to be laid out and checked along the way, whether it’s a complex IT project or planning your meat and vegetables to be ready at the same time.

Task Management- Work needs to be delegated to individuals and their progress needs to be managed. It’s important to stay on top of the to-do list as the restaurant was clearly not. Not staying on task can cost money, just like how the restaurant ended up paying for the meal in the end.

Process- When you deliver something you must offer what is needed with what you deliver. If you deliver a steak you give them a steak knife. If you deliver a new IT system, you need to offer training and support.
 
Negotiation- When the staff offered the free drink and where rejected they weren’t sure what to do next. They didn’t think the free drink would be turned down. Negotiation is often undervalued and overlooked project management skill that the best PMs have in abundance.

Leadership- In a busy kitchen or IT project the difference between leaders and managers is apparent. Project managers who improve their leadership skills find their motivational and communication skills develop organically.
 
Critical Thinking- This is essential to making good decisions. This is consideration on the pros and cons of different solutions before selecting the best move. Critical thinking is like a muscle and the more you use it the stronger and more effective it becomes. The restaurant weighed the pros and cons of waiving the bill but did not do this for the other customers.
 
Quality Control- Quality is now being prioritized as a core skill. Quality deliverables in a restaurant would be “compliments to the chef” or a nice tip. For IT projects this would be on-time delivery, on or under budget completion, and end user satisfaction.

Retaining a Sense of Humor- Projects can and will go wrong, and meals can get messed up. Humor can diffuse tense situations. You won’t display to your client you find humor in project delays, but sometimes having a laugh can help relieve pressure. This can make the staff more effective afterwards.

This relates to our course because we have been talking about project management. We talked about how to approach and deal with management and this article puts a real life example to what we have learned. I think being apply to apply what you have learned in class to real life examples is important because it makes topics easier to understand and apply it to other situations.

As an MIS major I feel like this will apply to us because everyone will use these skills in their careers. Though this restaurant is not full of project managers, we were still able to find how it connects. Also I know some MIS majors that will be going into project management and knowing something like this will help them improve their skills. This can also make someone a better citizen because these don’t have to be skills only applied to careers, these are skills anyone can use on a daily basis.

Restaurants are not the only ones dealing with project management. Can you think of any examples of project management in everyday life?
Citation:http://www.cio.com/article/3031697/project-management/making-a-meal-out-of-project-management.html