Churchill: The Agile PM (Part 13)

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Churchill: The Agile PM (Part 13)

Mark Kozak-Holland

January 24, 2007






Most people are very familiar with Winston Churchill but may not be familiar with his “agile” approach to project management and his skills as a PM in the summer of 1940. Part 12 looked at his background, why he was so uniquely qualified in May of 1940, the skills that he brought to bear to the project, and his previous project experience along with the battle scars. This article discusses how Churchill put in place a communication plan to bolster morale in the government, media and public.
 
In today’s world, communications management is fundamental to project management (one of nine PMBOK knowledge areas) in managing expectations. Since change is constant in an agile project, constant communication is the only means of maintaining the connections between all the participants. Most projects have internal and external audiences, and the messages differ in content and tone, as well as timing. For example:
  • Awareness communications at the end of each project stage
  • Special-purpose communications, usually a clear call-to-action
  • Data Freeze communications to announce a period of no updates
  • Launch communications to help users with new functionality
  • Stabilization communications of resolution work for known issues
  • Bulletin communications of changes to project dates, scope, or emerging issues, risk or requests
In the early summer of 1940, Churchill had to deal with a series of disasters culminating with Dunkirk (Part 7 and Part 8), the greatest defeat of the British army since the Napoleonic era.



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"Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools, because they have to say something."
- Plato