Making It Happen: A Non-Technical Guide to Project Management

Chapter 17. A Dependency Chart

I had the feeling that my personal popularity was at an all-time low with my project team. I could tell this by the expressions on people's faces as they sat around the conference table and stared into their coffee. It was the 28th of December, the Thursday after Christmas, and not even our now traditional box of donut holes was making a dent in the black cloud that was hanging near the ceiling of the conference room. I had been expecting a little bad feeling but, as the Californians like to say, the reality of all the negative energy was getting me down. Generally, only keeners and losers (with nothing else to do) show up at work during the Christmas break. Right now I wasn't sure whether my project team considered me a keener or a loser.

MarkGoldman started us off with a rousing round of, "How long do you think we'll be here?"

I began with my team building address. "I apologize for breaking in on your holidays but Ralph wants to see an execution plan right after New Year's, so this is our only time to get it done. As to your question Mark, I expect we'll be here until about 2:00." Everyone groaned. "We may be finished sooner, but I want to get our first cut at our execution plan done today."

At this point Sheia piped up with, "I've loaded the project management software onto my laptop, Will. To save time, we could plan the execution right on the computer." This brought a lot of positive nods. People often think things will go faster if there is ...