Emergency ! Is there a project manager in the room ?

Project manager is probably one of the least exciting titles to carry on your namecard. Really, what is there to manage about a project ? It's much cooler to identify yourself as being in business development, or at least have "innovation" in your job title. Yet two recent events in the news reminded me of the value of project management.

Apple brought out the iPhone 5 but the improvements of the phone were completely overshadowed by the talk about the disastrous map application that replaced Google maps. Not just some difficult-to-identify bug but real issues that make the application nearly useless.
4GS was awarded the contract to recruit and train security staff for the London 2012 Olympic games. 16 days before the opening ceremony, the company informed the organizers they were still missing more than 1700 guards. PWC made an audit after the fiasco and reported that the company did not realize the scale of the work, and listed numerous errors, including bad management.

These are not small projects. They are immensely important for the companies, their stakeholders, and reputation. These projects were in the works for years, with hundrerds of people involved in each company. Was there any project manager in charge ... ?

Here is a reminder of a few basics of managing projects towards success:

- milestones or deadlines are there to be met: if you do not reach your objective at a certain stage in the project, you need to change something  for the project to get back on track ... action is needed and just continuing and hoping for the best at the next milestone makes no sense;

- a no-go means we don't go; Steve Jobs was notorious for dictating design changes when the curve of a button or the sound of a click was not to his liking. These were critical elements (for him) and compromise was not allowed. If a customer-critical requirement is not met, the project manager needs to make sure the product is not launched hoping customers won't notice.

Project management is not very exciting, and only comes in the news when something goes wrong. Project managers deserve credit for all the projects that we don't talk about: those that deliver on time, budget and quality in a complex world.