Making Things Happen Quotes

“I’ve seen many managers who shy away from leadership moments (e.g., any moment where the team/project needs someone to take decisive action) and retreat to tracking the efforts of others instead of facilitating or even participating in them. If all someone does is keep score and watch from the sidelines, he might be better suited for the accounting department. When someone in a leadership role consistently responds to pressure by getting out of the fray, he’s not leading — he’s hiding. Ineffective”
― Scott Berkun, Making Things Happen: Mastering Project Management

“According to Petroski, real knowledge from real failure is the most powerful source of progress we have, provided we have the courage to carefully examine what happened. Perhaps this is why The Boeing Company, one of the largest airplane design and engineering firms in the world, keeps a black book of lessons it has learned from design and engineering failures.[4] Boeing has kept this document since the company was formed, and it uses it to help modern designers learn from past attempts. Any organization that manages to do this not only increases its chances for successful projects, but also helps create an environment that can discuss and confront failure openly, instead of denying and hiding from it. It seems that software developers need to keep black books of their own.”
― Scott Berkun, Making Things Happen: Mastering Project Management

“Plans act as a forcing function against all kinds of stupidity because they demand that important issues be resolved while there is time to consider other options. As Abraham Lincoln said, “If I had six hours to cut down a tree, I’d spend four hours sharpening the axe,” which I take to mean that smart preparation minimizes work.”
― Scott Berkun, Making Things Happen: Mastering Project Management

“Believe nothing, no matter where you read it or who has said it, not even if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense.” — Buddha”
― Scott Berkun, Making Things Happen: Mastering Project Management

“Chance favors the prepared.” — Louis Pasteur”
― Scott Berkun, Making Things Happen: Mastering Project Management

“Think biologically: humans are in better moods after they’ve eaten a fine meal or when they are in more pleasant surroundings.”
― Scott Berkun, Making Things Happen: Mastering Project Management

“Know what the other guy values before you try to convince him of something.”
― Scott Berkun, Making Things Happen: Mastering Project Management

“Effective PMs simply consider more alternatives before giving up than other people do.”
― Scott Berkun, Making Things Happen: Mastering Project Management

“If you lead an active intellectual and emotional life, your ideas will grow with you.”
― Scott Berkun, Making Things Happen: Mastering Project Management

“Without change and the occasional struggle, we can’t learn or grow.”
― Scott Berkun, Making Things Happen: Mastering Project Management

“Self-reliance is the ability to apply your individuality to the world, based on a framework of emotional, physical, and financial support for yourself.”
― Scott Berkun, Making Things Happen: Mastering Project Management

“Imparting trust, the real meaning of delegation, is a powerful thing.”
― Scott Berkun, Making Things Happen: Mastering Project Management

“Negotiation is useful not only in a crisis situation, but also in management. Good negotiators work from people’s interests, not their positions.”
― Scott Berkun, Making Things Happen: Mastering Project Management

“Taking responsibility for situations, regardless of who caused them, always helps to expedite resolving”
― Scott Berkun, Making Things Happen: Mastering Project Management

“Taking responsibility, even for failures, is always a growth opportunity.”
― Scott Berkun, Making Things Happen: Mastering Project Management

“You have to be willing to get burned if you want to develop the skill of putting out fires.”
― Scott Berkun, Making Things Happen: Mastering Project Management

“You can blame people who knock things over in the dark, or you can begin to light candles. You’re only at fault if you know about the problem and choose to do nothing.”
― Scott Berkun, Making Things Happen: Mastering Project Management

“Human nature reciprocates positive emotion, and when you bring something real out, you invite others to follow.”
― Scott Berkun, Making Things Happen: Mastering Project Management

“Reflection is highly underrated as a decision-making tool. To reflect means to step back and allow all of the information you’ve been working with to sink”
― Scott Berkun, Making Things Happen: Mastering Project Management

“Good engineering estimates are possible only if you have two things: good information and good engineers. If the specs are crap, and a programmer is asked to conjure up a number based on an incomprehensible whiteboard scribbling, everyone should know exactly what they’re getting: a fuzzy scribble of an estimate.”
― Scott Berkun, Making Things Happen: Mastering Project Management

“Often, QA has the best insight into design oversights and potential failure cases that others will overlook.”
― Scott Berkun, Making Things Happen: Mastering Project Management

“Schedules are simply a kind of prediction. No matter how precisely they are drafted or how convincing they appear, they are just a summation of lots of little estimations, each one unavoidably prone to different kinds of unforeseeable oversights and problems.”
― Scott Berkun, Making Things Happen: Mastering Project Management

“concept defined by the Japanese word shoshin — which means beginner’s mind,[1] or open mind —”
― Scott Berkun, Making Things Happen: Mastering Project Management

“Without failure, we forget, in arrogance, that our understanding of things is never as complete as we think it is.”
― Scott Berkun, Making Things Happen: Mastering Project Management

“Human beings, who are almost unique [among animals] in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so.” — Douglas Adams”
― Scott Berkun, Making Things Happen: Mastering Project Management

“Adherence to checklists implies that there is a definitive process that guarantees a particular outcome, which is never the case. In reality, there are always just three things: a goal, a pile of work, and a bunch of people.”
― Scott Berkun, Making Things Happen: Mastering Project Management

“Lame visions have no integrity: they don’t offer a plan, and they don’t express an opinion.”
― Scott Berkun, Making Things Happen: Mastering Project Management

“Perhaps this is why The Boeing Company, one of the largest airplane design and engineering firms in the world, keeps a black book of lessons it has learned from design and engineering failures.[4] Boeing has kept this document since the company was formed, and it uses it to help modern designers learn from past attempts. Any organization that manages to do this not only increases its chances for successful projects, but also helps create an environment that can discuss and confront failure openly, instead of denying and hiding from it. It seems that software developers need to keep black books of their own.”
― Scott Berkun, Making Things Happen: Mastering Project Management

“They don't have to be superhuman, or even particularly bright, to do this (as I've no doubt discovered). They just have to understand the advantage of their perspective and choose to make use of it.”
― Scott Berkun, Making Things Happen: Mastering Project Management

“When people are allowed to fail or make mistakes without taking responsibility for them, politics are inevitable. Without accountability for people’s commitments, few will trust others.”
― Scott Berkun, Making Things Happen: Mastering Project Management