My blog yesterday, admiration (ok hero-worship) of Kelly Johnson, started me thinking are there any real project or program management “heroes” – software or otherwise? In computing, there are many. Too many to name all of them but to name a few (in no order of importance or exclusivity, lest I start a flame war): Torvalds, Ritchie, Thompson, Jobs, Cerf, Kahn and Gates (I hope I got one from every religion).
But who are the super-heroes of project management? Are there project/program managers (PM’s) out there that have saved or are saving the world? After I stopped laughing, I thought maybe there is some validity in this thought. PM’s need encouragement and something to inspire them and try to emulate i.e. heroes, so why not. I’ll give it a shot.
This is my list of who is on the PM super-star, hero level (again, in no order of importance or exclusivity, lest I start a flame war):
- Kelly Johnson – the man behind Skunk Works. Read yesterday’s blog. What more needs to be said?
- Fred Brooks – the Mythical Man-Month was the “watershed” of software project management. It
asserted that this was a different animal.
- Henry Gantt – I can’t nor do I think anyone else can imagine project management without Gantt
charts. It is the universal project management icon.
- Gene Kranz – Has there ever been another project (i.e. “the problem”) that so parallels software
with its impossible deadlines and never been done before nature that was so brilliantly managed?
It was the mythical project with true life or death consequences. Has there ever been someone who
perfectly embodied the traits that make the ideal PM? OK he is the ultimate PM hero. Johnson is
a close second.
I’d be interested in hearing if there are others.
I guess there is something to aspire to but that still leaves us with one problem (as I like to say “a great miracle happens here”), how do you turn the stereotypical “Clark Kent” PM into a Superman “Gene Kranz” PM?
