When I wrote I my book The AV project manager handbook, I assumed some things. I didn’t stop to answer the fundamental question:

What is a project?

My friend Joe Way says everything is sales. I clap back “Everything is a project!”
But there is a demarcation. This is a project:
“A project is a temporary endeavor undertaken to create a unique product, service, or result.”
That sounds like lawyer talking. Let me pull out the dividing line. A project is something with an end, and it does something that isn’t already being done.

A project contrasts with operations. For an organization—whether a business, government or a household—there are the everyday systems that keep everything running.
In my household, I really want things to stay the same. We rely on a lot of systems. A really big one is our cars. We use our vehicles every day, and my daughter got her driver’s license recently. We are all zipping around for school, work and sports.

Making sure we park in the driveway in the right order so we can drive our cars in the order we are going to leave, keeping the gas tane full are folded into the week’s chores.

They are not a project. Nothing unique to see here. In fact, as far as my household is concerned, we want it to stay this way. Can I just go about my business please?

We can all get where we need.
UNTIL!
Disaster strikes: A car breaks
OR
Operational Upgrade! A new Vehicle purchase

Maybe my car breaks down and needs a new transmission. We would have to come up with a plan for the time and resources it will take to deal with this disruption in operations. The other drivers in the household might have to share their vehicles. The family would do decision analysis about the kind of repair we would do (repair or replace? What’s the budget? How old is my car? Etc.)


We would all weigh the opportunity and the cost in time and resources to make the best choice to restore the vehicle transportation system.
We could brainstorm ideas. Do we need three cars? How do the choices fit with our values and future plans?
The stakeholders –all of whom are still involved in operations—have their part to play in the project as it gets scoped, designed and executed.
In this case, all of them want to get back to operations as soon as possible.
For a professional services organization, a project is likely the source of revenue, Projects are the reason for operation, not an interruption of operations. The goal might be to define and execute as many project as possible, as quickly as possible.

Projects and Operations exist side by side, and the team would do well to understand the difference and right-size the effort and attention on both
All the stakeholders would be wise to identify which projects support their operations and which operations support their projects. It’s a changing continuum. What is the core value for the team? What things are always a NO? Communication, analysis and leadership will support success and progress.
Priorities, opportunities and disasters shift. Resources and attention can be distributed in response.

He couldn’t say I LOVE YOU

he didn’t have the words

yet he always came running

put himself in my way

here here he’s just gonna be here

Just gotta be here

Cause his eyes

his mind

His motion

all directed at me

Just gonna be here
Just gotta be here

Hey hey

No words and he always came running

‘by his contrivance, the most reasonable person at a reasonable charge and with a little bodily labor might write books in philosophy poetry, politics, laws, mathematics and theology  with the least assistance from genius or study”

The knowledge workier dominates business in creating value and money. Scientists and engineers have been working on labor saving devices for all of human history. The wheel remains a classic.

Even when we have no idea how to do something we are still dreaming of what we could do.

In Grek mythology It was the master craftsman Daedalus who made the wings out of feathers. He held  them in place with wax. He mae theme for his son Iarus. Daedulus warned him that the wax wouldn’t work if he didn’t do it right. Too close to the sun and the wax would melt. Too close to the ocean and the feathers would be too wet to fly

And what did Icarus do?

it wasn’t the damp seawater that was the problem.

He flew higher than was safe. He met his fate.

When it comes to Artificial Intelligence a, I also think, ‘didn’t we see how this movie ends?’ Sci Fi movies—as well as the novels—tend toward disastrous pessimism. Those kindly aliens show up with a book saying “How to Serve Man” and everyone welcomes them.

And then we learn IT IS A RECIPE BOOK!!!

That’s just a story though

Thia is real life.

I’ve been using AI and it is a useful tool. It is not really intelligence. The other term for AI is LLM or large language model.

Computer programs takes all the information we give it and provide the next most likely answer to a question. It’s a more sophisticated search engine. So sophisticated it sounds like it’s talking.

Of all places, Gulliver’s travels has this exact thing. One of the islands he visited, he found a place that had academies of learning that had come up with plans to solve every difficulity people experienced. They just needed to finish working out the kinks.

One academy had created a machine that mixed up all the words in the world, and strung them together so they would randomly arrange themselves into phrases. That is how books would be written.

As soon as they made the sentences make sense.

I approve of creating labor saving devices.But they have to save labor.

Before I put too much effort into a new technology, I have to make sure it does what it promised.

Last week We took a family trip to Knott’s berryfarm. Veronica invited a friend –Thank you Henry for being willing to ride the roller coasters!—and a good time was had by all. At the end Chris and Veronica went on the log ride one las time, so Henry and I kept each other company.
I told him I like to talk about books. He was interested and he had been in Veronica’s English class, so we talked about those. He said his dad loved Russian literature. By the end I was persuading him to read Crime and Punishment.
I said it was the story of how a loser young man persuaded himself that he was above the rules of regular people and could prove his own greatness by murdering someone. He talked himself into actually doing the crime in the most unheroic way possible and then had all the feelings of what he’d done. I told him I spoiled what the crime was, but the punishment was almost entirely what he inflicted on himself.
“That does sound interesting. My Dad would be so happy if I I read that book.”
This Sunday I played keyboard at church for a guest worship leader. As we exchanged stories I learned that he has been around music his whole life, and worked as part of the production crew for Earth Wind and Fire.
I told him how I was self-taught on the keys, and I started playing for church on the organ as a teenager.

“That’s one thing I never learned! I’d love to learn the organ.”
“I could show you!”
Walking away, I realized my presumption.

Who am I to teach this man who has been around world class musicians?
I am nothing special.
I spent some time playing with it, like a little kid.
And I suppose that is my point. I can share my love of music and books with people for whatever it’s worth to them. I’ll share my bit of heaven with you.

“Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. “
Matthew 18:3