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

Chapter 4. The Team Meets

At 9:55 the next morning, I entered the Hyler conference room. There was another meeting still going on. It was a status meeting about a marketing project that was supposed to have ended at 9.

I thought about last night while I waited for the room to clear. When I told Jenny about my conversation with Martha all she said was, "Are you going to ask them?"

"Ask who, what?" I answered.

"Ask your project team what a project is?"

"Hon," I began, "what does that have to do with anything? Everybody knows what a project is!"

Jenny did not want to hear about my troubles after that. All she said was, "Don't write Martha off. She knows what she's doing." I tried to explain to her that she thought that solely because Martha was a relation, and that there was some kind of trust there because of a complicated Freudian grandmother-granddaughter relationship, but she would have none of it.

I tried to explain to her that she thought that solely because Martha was a relation, and that there was some kind of trust there because of a complicated Freudian grandmother-granddaughter relationship, but she would have none of it.

By 10:15, everyone was there, and we were ready to start our 10:00 meeting. The teamwas seated in various places around the conference table. I, of course, occupied the head chair. Interesting, I reflected, how often I had thought that the person sitting in the head chair did not know what he or she was doing. Now I was sitting in that chair, and I knew ...