Many of us think that our day-to-day work is our function or job title. In reality, we spend most of our work time doing projects. What does a project look like? A project can be software team, orchestra, or movie production team. For example, most movies are projectized by a team of VUCANs consisting of writers, directors, actors, studio, distribution company, extras, accountants, and many other folks.
Roger L. Martin, a work guru, explains the importance of projects:
“You know, every Monday morning from 8:00 am to 9 am, you’d have a meeting, that could be considered as flat and routine. But at least 80% and probably closer to 95% of your meetings are an amalgam of projects – a portfolio of projects. … The average person living in one of those buildings thinks my life is this regular job and then I have these damn projects which get in the way of my regular job.”[i]
Gig-workers and side-hustlers are project workers. In America the share of temporary workers, contractors and freelancers in the workforce rose from 10.1% in 2005 to 15.8% in 2015. Gig-work, side-hustles, and even core repetitive work are mainly project-based. In the COVID crash, project and gig workers were often the first to be displaced.
Project work can be a challenge for VUCANs that can’t or don’t self manage. Why? It’s based on getting small and large tasks done on time and budget. Individual project monitoring can be onerous if not surveillance like. Any project variances and risks are known and reported to everyone. Keeping on the project’s critical path is everyone’s responsibility and any deviation results in monitoring, corrective actions, and if these continue replacement. Not a fun life.
[i] ‘Roger Martin, Playing to Win’, LinkedIn, July 9, 2019.