Project management is … 

The art of creating the illusion that any outcome
 is the result of a series of predetermined, deliberate acts 

when, in fact, it was dumb luck. 

    (Harold Kerzner, 1995)

Don’t use a sledgehammer to crack a walnut’, 
but equally don’t agree important things informally where there is a chance of a disagreement later over what was agreed. 
     (Colin Bentley, 199)

Danger Réalité 

Attention une dose trop forte de réalité peut gravement 

nuire à la qualité de vos rêves.

Toujours se protéger par une couche épaisse d'illusion. 

Meetnaping : the tendency to kidnap a colleague 

by forcing him to attend a useless meeting

- I need a budget estimate for my project. 

But don't have a scope or a design for it yet. 

- Okay. My estimate is $3.583.729

- You don't know anything about my project

- That makes two of us. 

Those who plan do better than those who do not plan 

even though they rarely stick to their plan. 

(Winston Churchill)

Know when to cut your losses if necessary. 

Don't let your desire to succeed be the enemy of good judgment. 

If Napoleon had left Moscow immediately, 

he may have returned with a salvageable army.

 (Jerry Manas, 2002)

 

With computers seem to have a lot of spare time ...

If it is not documented, it doesn't exist. 

As long as information is retained in someone's head, it is vulnerable to loss.

   (Louis Fried, 1992)

L is for the way you look at me

O is for the only one I see

V is very, very extraordinary

E is even more than anyone that you adore can

Love is all that I can give to you

Love is more than just a game for two

Two in love can make it

Take my heart and please don't break it

Love was made for me and you

(Nat King Cole, Love)

Design vs User Experience

Why do so many professionals say they are project managing,
when what they are actually doing is fire fighting?
   (Colin Bentley, 1997)

Ninety percent of the game is half mental.

(Yogi Berra)

- Life could be worse, Calvin

- Life could be a lot better too! 

You may con a person into committing to an unreasonable deadline, 
but you cannot bully them into meeting it. 

(Edward, Butler, Hill & Russel; 1997)

I stand upon my desk 

to remind myself that

we must constantly 

look at things

in a different way. 

(Dead Poets Society)

20% of people do 80% of the work. 

80% of the people think that they are these 20% 

One good test is worth a thousand expert opinions. 

  tWernher von Braun)

Success is not final, failure si not fatal;

it is the courage to continue that counts. 

(Winston Churchill)

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.

(Theodore Roosevelt, Citizenship in a Republic; Paris, France – 1910)