How do they find the time?

I'm a fan of LinkedIn, to a point... It is great to be able to form connections with people that I've known for years as well as people I met more recently in teaching and speaking. Some of the groups crack me up, though. I recently joined one based on the invite from the founder, who is a prominent member of PMI. I need to revisit my settings, because the posts coming into this thing are frequent and loonnnggg.

As I read these well-developed, lengthy philosophical discourses on whether mid-sized projects and organizations require or should use scaled project management approaches, I ask myself "how do they find the time to write this?" I work at a mid-size company - I'm leading a website development project (redoing the whole site, front to back) within the context of a larger ERP implementation, and I sure don't have time to write paragraphs on methodology in the middle of the workday!

I just joined another group, and the first post I saw was something about "what killed waterfall could kill agile." Hello - Waterfall is not dead, will never die - and neither will Agile. Old project management methodologies never die, they just become less sexy. As project managers, do not get tied to a methodology. If you cannot adapt your approach to fit the project, if you cannot flex to apply the best tactics and strategy to the organizational project context, you are in trouble.

A bright consultant I know, Robert Merrill, said something like "the difference between methodology zealots and terrorists is that you can sometimes negotiate with terrorists." That's funny... and too true. Don't be a methodology zealot - you'll be boring, inflexible, and perhaps soon unemployed.

Oh, and I am writing this really early in the morning. Watch for sample chapters from my book soon!