You might be a PM if…

Article
09/30/2008

Fun compile of a lengthy thread on an internal discussion list (thanks Eric!) :)

You might be a PM if…

... someone asks about your weekend plans and your answer consists of a list of Pri ones, twos, and threes.
... you’ve ever ended a relationship using a PowerPoint presentation.
... you shape your wedding plans around product releases.
... you can use all of the features of PowerPoint.
... you fail to associate ‘specs’ with ‘glasses’.
... you write a post mortem about every major decision in your life.
... you refer to your family and friends as “actors”.
... you spend your evenings and weekends making tons of candy because you had to bribe the engineers complete their tasks on time.
... you spend an inordinate amount of time thinking about how to rearrange the trash cans in the cafeteria to make the flow more efficient.
... you end every discussion with “so what are the next steps?”.
... when using a new website, you think this site would be a lot better if they just did ______.
... you are the one proposing and planning that great last Spring Break trip to your friends.
... you use Excel spreadsheets and random column sorting to choose your newborn child’s name.
... you use the term "ask" as a noun.
... you have a 5 phase plan for your Saturday night date.
... you’re adept at using rules to manage massive low-pri e-mail threads.
... you tell your wife/husband/partner that you simply can’t “grok” what he/she’s saying.
... you talked about the dogfood you ate yesterday to your girl friend at dinner.
... you know how many cycles you have available to do something.
... you set KPIs as part of a marriage proposal or acceptance.
... you conduct a post–mortem and it does not involve dead bodies.
... you’re wondering if there’s a process you can introduce to tame this e-mail beast.
... you’ve been called “bossy” by more than one person.
... you're constantly clarifying the difference between a risk and an issue.
... you ask your wife/husband/partner for their plan (when building your garden box).
... upon hearing a mere suggestion, you respond with “that’s a great idea, can I assign that action item to you?”.
... you're sending out status reports on everything you do, to your stakeholders – including your spouse, you are a lifetime PM.
... you plan your life with a detailed Project file... and it never reflects your real life.
... you go to a meeting and start with “I don't have much to say today” and then keep speaking for an hour.
... you use the words orthogonal, oarp, triage, long pole, milestone, or grok in daily conversation (and all in the same day).
... you use more three letter acronyms than actual words.
... you answer email after everyone else goes to bed.
... you answer email before anyone gets up.
... you complete a spec, review 5 others, triage dozens of bugs, plan a hotfix release, send status reports, schedule two meetings, drive two other meetings, and attend a customer conference call – before lunch.
... while ending a domestic phone conversation, you summarize the conversation and state the open points... Everyone in your house gives you a meaningful look and talk in whispers after you leave the room and giggle.
... you tend to identify the risks in everything you do and then start looking for workarounds/mitigations.
... if at every review cycle you KNOW there will be negative feedback from someone you irked for having to bird-dog them, and … if you learn to appreciate the description of you as “too direct”.
... break out in sweat when your spousal unit does not calculate the most efficient route for the weekend errands.
... you calculate the critical path for your weekend errands.
... if you actually know how to herd cats.
... if you buy a Karaoke machine and have 300+ songs organized in a pivot that you print & give to your guests at your spouse’s birthday the following Saturday night.
... if your wife is pregnant, you prepare a project plan with the doctor and hold him accountable is she is not tracking as per plan.
... if you talk to dev like a dev and talk to test like a test.

You might be a PM if…

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