A few years ago, our Human Resources department decided to bundle a health screening with our annual flu shot party. I figured that since I had to roll up my sleeve to get the flu shot, why not get my blood pressure taken and answer a few questions about stress and lifestyle? In retrospect, I should have foregone the health screening. It turns out that my life in IT - particularly leading large, put-the-business-at-risk projects - has made me prematurely old and fat. The health screening reported that my health age is about 10 years older than my actual age. No wonder I felt that I was close to retirement.

Based on the results of my health screening, I explored changes I could make in my life. I quickly threw out a better, healthier diet and there was no way I was willing to start exercising. Instead, I decided to focus on changing the way I manage large, put-the-business-at-risk projects. As I reflected on my life, I realized that what was really causing me physical damage was my trying to push big rocks up a hill. Each of the large, put-the-business-at-risk projects I manage involves making massive changes to processes, business rules, how people do their work, and – worst of all – peoples’ attitudes. That is a lot for one project team to take on. So, in order to create the new, healthier Niel, I decided that instead of pushing big rocks up a hill, I would only push small pebbles up a hill.

How did I do this?

·         First, I now always do small scale pilots with my large, put-the-business-at-risk projects. Pilots not only reduce project complexity, they let me test approaches to change management and find out what works before I expand the project across the entire company. Even better, I can usually rely on the pilot users to become evangelists with their business peers.

·         Second, I now always break my large, put-the-business-at-risk-projects into phases. At the end of each phase, my team can re-assess the plans for the next phase and deal with scope and functionality changes without the normal panic and ripple effects.

·         Third, doing pilots and project phases allows me to broadly delegate otherwise complex tasks. I don’t need an entire team with large, put-the-business-at-risk project experience because our pilots and phases are much more manageable. As a result, I don’t need to be the know-it-all, do-it-all project manager.

My life is now a bit simpler. I focus on designing pilots and phases and managing the relationships with our large, put-the-business-at-risk customers. My health age is now close enough to my actual age that I can continue to eat poorly and never exercise – at least until my next health screening.