Jokes with Project Managers
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Three men: a project manager, a software engineer, and a hardware engineer are helping out on a project. About midweek they decide to walk up and down the beach during their lunch hour. Halfway up the beach, they stumbled upon a lamp. As they rub the lamp a genie appears and says "Normally I would grant you three wishes, but since there are three of you, I will grant you each one wish." The hardware engineer went first. "I would like to spend the rest of my life living in a huge house in St. Thomas with no money worries." The genie granted him his wish and sent him on off to St. Thomas. The software engineer went next. "I would like to spend the rest of my life living on a huge yacht cruising the Mediterranean with no money worries." The genie granted him his wish and sent him off to the Mediterranean. Last, but not least, it was the project manager's turn. "And what would your wish be?" asked the genie. "I want them both back after lunch" replied the project manager. -- http://www.workjoke.com
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A man is flying in a hot air balloon and realizes he is lost. He reduces height and spots a man down below. He lowers the balloon further and shouts: "Excuse me, can you help me? I promised my friend. I would meet him half an hour ago, but I don't know where I am.” The man below says, "Yes, you are in a hot air balloon, hovering approximately 30 feet above this field. You are between 40 and 42 degrees North latitude, and between 58 and 60 degrees West longitude.” "You must be a programmer," says the balloonist. "I am," replies the man. "How did you know?" "Well," says the balloonist, "everything you have told me is technically correct, but I have no idea what to make of your information, and the fact is I am still lost." The man below says, "You must be a project manager" "I am," replies the balloonist, "but how did you know?” "Well," says the man, "you don't know where you are or where you are going. You have made a promise which you have no idea how to keep, and you expect me to solve your problem. The fact is you are in the exact same position you were in before we met, but now it is somehow my fault." -- http://www.joblatino.com/jokes/managers.html PPPM www.learneasy.eu
http://www.businessballs.com
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A clergyman, a doctor and a project manager were playing golf together one day and were waiting for a particularly slow group ahead. The project manager exclaimed, "What's with these people? We've been waiting over half and hour! It's a complete disgrace." The doctor agreed, "They're hopeless, I've never seen such a rabble on a golf course." The clergyman spotted the approaching greenkeeper and asked him what was going on, "What's happening with that group ahead of us? They're surely too slow and useless to be playing, aren't they?" The greenkeeper replied, "Oh, yes, that's a group of blind fire-fighters. They lost their sight saving our clubhouse from a fire last year, so we always let them play for free anytime." The three golfers fell silent for a moment. The clergyman said, "Oh dear, that's so sad. I shall say some special prayers for them tonight." The doctor added, rather meekly, "That's a good thought. I'll get in touch with an ophthalmic surgeon friend of mine to see if there's anything that can be done for them." After pondering the situation for a few seconds, the project manager turned to the greenkeeper and asked, "Why can't they play at night?" -- http://www.businessballs.com
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A project manager was out walking in the countryside one day when a frog called out to him. He bent down, picked up the frog and put it in his pocket. The frog poked its head out of his pocket and said, "Hey, if you kiss me I'll turn me back into a beautiful princess, and I'll stay with you for a week as your mistress." The project manager took the frog out of his pocket, smiled at it, and put it back into his pocket. The frog called out once more, "If you kiss me and turn me back into a princess, I'll stay with you for as long as you wish and do absolutely anything that you want." Again the Project manager took the frog out of his pocket, smiled at it and put it back. Finally, the frog demanded, "What's the matter? You can turn me back into a beautiful princess, and I'll stay with you for ever and do anything you want. Why won't you kiss me?" The project manager replied, "Understand, I'm a project manager. I simply don't have time for a girlfriend. But a talking frog...that's cool." -- http://www.businessballs.com
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Top 10 Reasons NOT to Use Project Management 10. Our customers really love us, so they don't care if our products are late and don't work. 9. Organizing to manage projects isn't compatible with our culture, and the last thing we need around this place is change. 8. All our projects are easy, and they don't have cost, schedule, and technical risks anyway. 7. We aren't smart enough to implement project management without stifling creativity and offending our technical geniuses. 6. We might have to understand our customers' requirements and document a lot of stuff, and that is such a bother. 5. Project management requires integrity and courage, so they would have to pay me extra. 4. Our bosses won't provide the support needed for project management; they want us to get better results through magic. 3. We'd have to apply project management blindly to all projects regardless of size and complexity, and that would be stupid. 2. I know there is a well-developed project management body of knowledge, but I can't find it under this mess on my desk. 1. We figure it's more profitable to have 50% overruns than to spend 10% on project management to fix them. -- http://www.hyperthot.com/proj_2.htm
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Rules of Project Management (1/3) •It takes one woman nine months to have a baby. It cannot be done in one month by nine women. •Nothing is impossible for the person who doesn't have to do it. •You can con a sucker into committing to an impossible deadline, but you cannot con him into meeting it. •At the heart of every large project is a small project trying to get out. •The more desperate the situation the more optimistic the situatee. •A problem shared is a buck passed. •A change freeze is like the abominable snowman: it is a myth and would melt anyway when heat is applied. •A user will tell you anything you ask, but nothing more. •Of several possible interpretations of a communication, the least convenient is the correct one. •What you don't know hurts you. •There's never enough time to do it right first time but there's always enough time to go back and do it again. •The bitterness of poor quality lasts long after the sweetness of making a date is forgotten. •I know that you believe that you understand what you think I said, but I am not sure you realise that what you heard is not what I meant. •What is not on paper has not been said. •A little risk management saves a lot of fan cleaning. •If you can keep your head while all about you are losing theirs, you haven't understood the plan.
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Rules of Project Management 2/3 •If everything is going exactly to plan, something somewhere is going massively wrong. •Everyone asks for a strong project manger - when they get one, they don't want one. •Overtime is a figment of the naive project manager's imagination. •Quantitative project management is for predicting cost and schedule overruns well in advance. •The sooner you begin coding the later you finish. •Metrics are learned men's excuses. •For a project manager, overruns are as certain as death and taxes. •Some projects finish on time in spite of project management best practices. •Fast - cheap - good - you can have any two. •There is such a thing as an unrealistic timescale. •The project would not have been started if the truth had been told about the cost and timescale. •A two-year project will take three years; a three-year project will never finish. •When the weight of the project paperwork equals the weight of the project itself, the project can be considered complete. •A badly planned project will take three times longer than expected - a well-planned project only twice as long as expected. •Warning: dates in a calendar are closer than they appear to be. •Anything that can be changed will be changed until there is no time left to change anything. •There is no such thing as scope creep, only scope gallop. •A project gets a year late one day at a time.
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Rules of Project Management (3/3)
•If at first you don't succeed, remove all evidence you ever tried. •Feather and down are padding, changes and contingencies will be real events. •There are no good project managers - only lucky ones. •The more you plan the luckier you get. •A project is one small step for the project sponsor, one giant leap for the project manager. •Good project management is not so much knowing what to do and when, as knowing what excuses to give and when. If you're 6 months late on a milestone due next week but really believe you can make it, you're a project manager. •No project has ever finished on time, within budget, to requirements. •Yours won't be the first to. •Activity is not achievement. •Managing IT people is like herding cats. •If you don't know how to do a task, start it, then ten people who know less than you will tell you how to do it. •If you don't plan, it doesn't work. If you do plan, it doesn't work either. Why plan! •The person who says it will take the longest and cost the most is the only one with a clue how to do the job. •The sooner you get behind schedule, the more time you have to make it up. •The nice thing about not planning is that failure comes as a complete surprise rather than being preceded by a period of worry and depression. •Good control reveals problems early - which only means you'll have longer to worry about them. -- http://www.funny-haha.co.uk
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