Teaching Project Survival Skills: Lessons from 'The Martian'

摘要

The popularity of the movie and book , "The Martian," provide an interesting and helpful launching point for reconsidering what it takes to be an effective project manager in today's world where projects must often adapt with agility to changing conditions or fail. In "The Martian," astronaut, mechanical engineer, and botanist Mark Watney is left behind on Mars when the team needs to rapidly evacuate due to a sudden sand storm. Watney is presumed dead after being hit by flying debris and the team is unable to rescue his body before the ship needs to launch to avoid tragedy. Watney regains consciousness, only to discover has team has left and he needs to figure out some way to stay alive long enough, with very limited food, oxygen, and supplies, to possibly rendezvous with a return mission to Mars in four years. Realizing his predicament, Watney, speaking to his camera diary, says, "I'm gonna have to science the shit out of this." Watney's reaction is a life-or-death version of the reaction that real-world project managers feel at some visceral level when their projects take some major, unexpectedly bad turn. Virtually all projects, even those best planned, funded, and credit staffed, face these externally imposed dilemmas when world events, markets, or the forces of nature throw a major curve ball at a seemingly well-planned project.