Tony started as a cook and worked his way up the ranks to owner of ‘Les Halles’ in New York City, through many highs and lows with a mix of cockiness and humility when needed. It wasn’t his cooking that put him on the map though; it was his exposé on what really goes on outside of the dining room in restaurant kitchens – a book called Kitchen Confidential.
In Tony’s recent book, Medium Raw, he declares it a shame that high schools across America stopped teaching Home Economics due to the rise of feminism. Instead of abolishing the class, Home Economics should have been modified to include both genders. Tony believes that everyone should know how to use a knife, how to cook a steak (and let it rest!), how to roast a chicken, and how to make an omelet. These are the basics, the essentials, which everyone should know how to do.
| Like Tony, I get frustrated when I watch people ‘butchering’ a craft. In my case, it’s Project Management. I believe there are certain basics, certain fundamentals, which one must do in order to not cut their finger off, decimate the steak, and dry out the chicken. These fundamentals are as follows: |  |
1) Plan. Create a Project Plan. Not just the MPP version which has all the tasks, dates and resources on it, but a real plan describing the project, explaining the deliverables, defining the methodology, documenting risks, special requirements, technology to be used, etc. This is the same as learning to use the knife. If you don’t know how to chop, you should get the hell out of the kitchen.
2) Understand the requirements. Don’t just depend on others to do all the understanding for you. It’s like the owner of a restaurant who has never rolled up her sleeves and cooked. I once worked with a manager who declared ‘I don’t work, I manage.’ And so he managed himself right out of a job.
3) Communicate. Open your mouth and holler when you see a risk. And you better write it down too in a Risk Tracker. You must communicate to your team and communicate to your client. And it’s a lot more complex than that. You need to know how to tailor your message depending on with whom you are speaking. Maybe it’s another Project Manager whose application will be integrating with yours. Maybe it’s your newly hired tester who needs a lot of coaching. Maybe it’s the President of the company. You better know what needs to be shared with each of these fine folks. Just like the chef at a busy restaurant better know when the fish is being delivered, that the dishwasher isn’t coming in tonight, and that the front of the house is getting slammed. And he better know how to communicate with each person to make sure that every customer walks out with a smile on his face.
4) Know your scope. What did you sign up for? What does the agreed upon statement of work between you and your client state? Are you following this? If not, have you put a change order in place and received signoff on it? If not, and you deliver something completely different than the customer asks for, weeks later than originally planned, guess who’s at fault? I don’t care if you added all those fancy bells and whistles… you didn’t deliver on what was promised effectively. You burned the omelet.
5) There is a term in the restaurant business called being ‘in the weeds.’ It’s basically when someone is in trouble and they are having a heck of a time climbing out. If you’ve seen the television show ‘Hell’s Kitchen’ then you have had a chance to see it each week. The ruthless chef, Gordon Ramsay, makes determinations of how to fix it ASAP before the entire restaurant crumbles. He triages the situation and determines if he can get a backup or needs to promptly kick someone out of the kitchen. A good Project Manager knows when her team is ‘in the weeds.’ And with experience can generally triage the situation and get things on the right path. The first step is knowing when there is a problem. The second is figuring out how to fix it. Like Bourdain, I get ready to pull out my hair when I see a green status report coming in every week for a project riddled with major, complex, issues.
And a final basic: Say Thank You. There are times when the team steps up to a challenge, and they need to know it is appreciated. It makes them far more likely to want to step up again when it is called for. It doesn’t need to be grandiose measures – sometimes it means taking the team out for a drink or giving someone a special award. A Project Manager cannot deliver the project by himself. Like the head chef in a restaurant who are dependent on a sous chef, line cooks, wait staff, etc. etc. If you don’t respect your team, how will they ever respect you?
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