If you are not a parent, do not leave this little analogy on how project management and parenting have real elements of similarity- this is all still relevant to you.

Project management begins when a concept is to be taken from an idea into a reality.

Parenting begins in a similar way. Certainly for the first child, the parents have only a vague notion of what it will be like. Then they hear those famous words from the mid-wife or doctor saying “it’s a boy or it’s a girl or it’s triplets (ahem!)”  and it brings them firmly into the world of parenting.

In business parlance, parenting would be a program of work to deliver a well-rounded individual out into the world.

A parent tries to deliver this rounded person through identifiable project management activities all requiring different skills (planning, implementation, change management, coaching, mentoring, disciplining (!), budgeting) – in fact all of the key attributes of a successful project manager.

Ok, so a parent doesn’t produce a project management plan, send status reports or produce any of the “stuff” that project managers do, but it most certainly is done in the heads of all the Mums and Dads out there. A parents’ ability to react to an ever-changing environment would get a project manager an award in a large program of work.

Many of us in the business environment are parents who want to do the best for our children. We go out of our way to ensure their needs are met and make our own sacrifices to enable them to achieve their potential.

Why is it then that many of us fail to deliver our business commitments in the same organised way?

Are our customers any different to our children in their expectations of us? No, they expect us to do what we said we were going to do and to do a good job for them. Isn’t it our role to ensure that our customers are not demanding attention in the manner of our friend in the picture?

By applying the same level of project management capability into our daily work life that we do as parents, we will deliver what our customers need, will react more positively to any changes and engender loyalty.

Can you think of other similarities?