Ithuta JV

Source - Article by Bob Andrew

Some people say jokingly, or perhaps not so jokingly, that there are no good project managers - only lucky ones. It could be that these people use the phrase as a ‘catch all’, when they really don’t know why or how they succeeded. It may also be the case that post implementation project reviews can get very complex, with so many factors having to be discussed and rationalised, that it’s easier and less time consuming to call upon luck as the explanation of a well undertaken project.

Calling a project manager lucky at the end of a successful project could fail to acknowledge all the hard work and leadership skills that the project manager injected into the project. This hard work might have put the project manager into the position to take advantage of opportunities (perhaps these could have been ‘lucky’ or random events) when these occurred. They took advantage of the moment and succeeded.

Project management success isn’t about being in the right place at the right time, i.e. being ‘lucky’, it’s about doing the right things in the right place at the right time, and in the right sequence. It’s about seizing opportunities that present themselves: it’s the intersection point of opportunity and preparation. As Gary Player - the South African Golfing Master once said: “the harder I work, the luckier I get”.

Read more about Gary Player here.

Read what Donald Trump has to say on the same subject