S10E222: Why Great Project Leaders Go to the Movies with Dawn Mahan

It sounds like it's a theme park, actually.

So maybe that's the next thing after the book is the-

Let's do it

... can we go to Project Land, Dad? You know, we take the kids to Project Land, and they can do a, uh, a Gantt chart, and they can draw up a, a, a cost report for us, you know? But, uh, where, where did the, the term come from? I wanna get back to this Project Land piece 'cause I love this.

Um, how do you describe that to people who don't know what that is?

Well, where it came from is, uh, was also by accident.

So basically, my whole life and career has been a series of accidents, but, you know, maybe it's all by design, you know, the screenwriters in the background doing their thing.

Um, but it was, it was by accident.

I was star- I was standing in the r- in front of a room full of professionals who were really worried because they had a new boss, and the new boss was saying, "You are gonna have to learn how to do projects." And she brought me in, 'cause she had worked with me before, to teach them about the basics of project management.

Now, they were all operations people.

They were all excellent.

They were all experienced.

And I was trying to help them understand why projects are so different and why projects, the world of projects is so difficult sometimes.

And so I blurted out, "We should just call it something different.

We should call it something like, I don't know, Project Land." And then I kind of forgot about it, and the next week I was walking through the hall to go speak with the, the training sponsor, um, and I was walking by two of the guys that had been in the class, and w- they were just speaking to one another, and I didn't really wanna, you know, interrupt them, so I walked by and I just sort of waved.

But then I passed them, and I overheard one say to the other, "Dude, it's Project Land.

It's different." And I was like, "Wait, what?"

[laughs]

So I backed up and I said, "Excu- did I just hear what, what...

Did you just say...

Are..." And the yes.

[laughs] I was so dumbfounded.

Wow.

And he said, "Yeah, that really helped me." And so I thought, "Oh, okay.

Maybe finally I've stumbled my way into figuring out how to explain this finally." And so th- many years later We have two books with Project Land on the covers because it has stuck just to help people understand it's different than the day job.