Recently a good friend told me that if you are not a man of your word that you can’t make, let alone keep, commitments. The corollary is that if you make a commitment you should keep it or risk degrading your “word”. A simple example is picking up a friend for work. You make the commitment but the night before you decide that you are not going to work the next day. You could justify not picking up your friend. But what would the impact be? What positive things could result from keeping your commitment? Your friend would upgrade their thinking about you and possibly make decisions about how they will react to needs that you might have.

Continuing my commitment to write projectmanagement411.com has required adjustment. I’ve adjusted what I write about, the reasons for continuing writing, and what benefits I personally receive. I look at this experience as a project that must be continued for my benefit as well as others. Keeping this commitment has resulted in learning things I never thought possible and establishing relationships that I would not have otherwise established. The personal reasons for considering breaking my commitment didn’t really matter to my “customers”. What matters is that I made the adjustments and continued.

One of the tough things to deal with in project management is resource allocation. Resources, like yourself, are asked to make commitments to multiple projects. Consider how you make and how you break commitments. Your integrity and word are at stake.

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Post from: EveryJoe

Commitment Makes a Better Projectmanagement411

Commitment. It’s a word that creates more questions than answers because of the changes and distractions that follow commitments we make. I started this blog in October 2007 while working for a consulting firm specializing in project management software implementations. My rationale for the commitment was 1) it fit with my current position, 2) I wanted to learn about blogging and it’s potential for marketing and communication, plus 3) I like to write. I left the project management consulting firm soon after and had to make a decision. Do I stop blogging?

Stopping so soon after starting, although justifiable by most people’s standards, was not an option because I felt my word was on the line. I could not be a person of my word if I stopped doing something that quickly. People that I made a commitment to would “understand” but my actions would still result in impacting many and my reputation. So, I decided to continue.

Have you committed to do something that you later could justify not doing? Have you considered the impact of your decision? What will happen to the project you are involved with if you or others decide they can’t continue? Do the reasons have to be understood by all or just you? What happens to your “word” and integrity if you do not fulfill the commitment?

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If you subscribe by email I’ll send you my eBook for free! Here’s how: subscribe by email in the right hand column PLUS send an email post that you receive to bob.turek@b5media.com. (Sorry for the extra step- we don’t have this automated yet.)

To preview the book, or to order a hardcopy, go to my publishing web site by clicking the book cover.

Post from: EveryJoe

Projectmanagement411 Examines Commitment