The Project+ Exam Studying Project Is Now Extinct

That’s right. I passed Project+ today. Really no surprises on the exam; it was pretty much what I expected.

On a side note, a friend linked me to a page describing “the two things” you should know about a variety of subjects. Ya know, the two most important things you can tell someone about a subject. It has this to say about project management:

The Two Things about Project Management:
1. The schedule will slip.
2. It’s about how you manage the schedule slippage.

So what are your two things?

Parkinson’s Law

Here’s an interesting tidbit from my Project+ studies. Parkinson’s Law states:

Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.

In other words, if you schedule “extra” time for work to be completed it will magically take exactly that long to do. People naturally pad to fill the available time. They might do this by wasting time and resources, or making a simple task overly complex, etc. The law was posited in a humorous essay for the Economist, but it really rings true. Be careful to manage any float time carefully, lest you or others fill it just because it’s there!