Project Manager Mom

By Frank McMaye

An appreciation for the one who consistently answers the questions: Whats for dinner? What should I wear? Can I go to a sleepover? Have you seen my keys? Where are my socks? Where are the kids immunization records? I dont feel well; what should I do? And many such questions that come up in the house every day! The one who arrives early at work to deal the boss or employees, sneak out at break to check on the babysitter, swing by the grocery on the way home, drops her bag and goes straight to the kitchen to make dinner, spends all Saturday supporting the kidss soccer game Mom!

Its all about getting work done, at home as it is in the workplace. It can be managed as a team so mom doesnt have to carry a disproportional share of it.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Balboa Press
• Release date: Dec 22, 2017
• ISBN: 9781504337908

Frank McMaye

Frank McMaye is a father and a professional. He is an engineer, a certified project manager by the Project Management Institute and Stanford University, founder and former President of ZealTech LLC, a computer design company, and presently an information technology consultant.

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Copyright © 2015 Frank A. McMaye.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Balboa Press

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

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Print information available on the last page.

ISBN: 978-1-5043-3789-2 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5043-3791-5 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-5043-3790-8 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2016915587

Balboa Press rev. date: 12/20/2017

CONTENTS

Foreword

Preface

Chapter 1 Introduction

Chapter 2 What Moms Do All Day

Chapter 3 The Work of Helping Mom

Chapter 4 Characteristics of Work We Perform

Section1: Planning and Managing Operations

Chapter 5 Operations – Routine Activities

Chapter 6 Digging Deeper - Putting It All Together

Chapter 7 Planning Daily Operations

Chapter 8 Executing the Operations Plan

Section2: Planning and Managing Projects

Chapter 9 Project Management Basics

Chapter 10 Project Management Process

Chapter 11 Project Initiation

Chapter 12 Project Planning – Detailed Scope

Chapter 13 Project Planning – Schedule

Chapter 14 Project Planning – Cost Management

Chapter 15 Project Planning – The Team

Chapter 16 Project Planning - Communication Management

Chapter 17 Project Execution and Closure

Chapter 18 Special Topics

Conclusion

Appendix Source of Additional Information

To my wife Margaret

For being the inspiration for this book, for refusing to compromise when it comes to doing the best for her family and insisting on everyone doing the same.

To my mother Beatrice

For teaching me that the smile of patience and quiet persistence can accomplish just as much as any force in the world, and with less pieces to clean up after.

FOREWORD

Tighten your seat belts! You are about to board the flight to parenthood – the most important job in the world without a manual of operations. Young drivers learning to drive for the first time can lean on their driver’s manual. Parents on the other hand, learn on the job. In writing Project Manager Mom, we provide a practical how to help with that all-important job of parenting.

Project Manager Mom can be counted as one of the few books that have captured the essence of the generation for whom it is written. Given the proliferation of family units as well as diminishing the household roles, Project Manager Mom is a book for everyone who aspires to run a household.

This book will propel you to strive for competence in an imperfect world. Crediting moms for being quintessential project managers is the primary theme that runs through the prism of their work. With the explosion of gadgets which can constitute a distraction to the family unit, the message is challenging.

While most people can agree that project management is a handy tool for managing today’s workplace, few know of or believe in applying the same principles garnered from project management to family projects- raising children, being present with a spouse, and running a household. Project Manager Mom suggests that project management could be used in all aspects of our lives.

Most of the book focuses on how to manage projects. There are sections of the book that include tools for procurement, stress management, and goals. In the end, it is Moms’ intuitions that make them our heroes. We need to support them and their inherent nature with these simple, clear and manageable tools and give them the room to make our families better. We seek to make our families and lives better.

Dr. Stevina Evuleocha-Ugbah

Professor, California State University, East Bay

PREFACE

Purpose of the Book

One of our children captured the ultimate motivation for this book. Mommy spends most of her time looking out for everyone and she’s always tired. How can we all pitch in to give her a break? We found a way!

The purpose of this book is to share our experience in a challenging situation, and what we did about it that led to not only resolving the situation, but opportunities to extend it to several other aspects of our lives with success, satisfaction and surprising fun. Most importantly, it led us to understanding and appreciating all that Mom does for us every day; things we had grown to take for granted.

As a professional project manager, I have always suspected that I learn as much from the natural ‘project managers’ around me, my wife and my mother, as much as I do from my profession. But I had made the commitment to keep my professional life separate from my home as much as possible. But when situation forced it, all I could think of was, why didn’t we do this sooner? By applying some principles of project management to home projects, we are able to bring our situation under control, and get more work done with far less stress on family members, especially Mom. Our hope is that the ideas shared here will help you too in executing home and personal projects more effectively and gain greater satisfaction from what you do.

The title, Project Manager Mom, is not intended to imply in any way that only mothers manage every aspect of household activities in the family. It is so titled because in many families, it is mothers that play that role, as it is in our case. So ‘Mom’ is used as the ‘role of Mom’, not necessarily the mother of the children. In some families, this could be the father, grandma, auntie or even an older child.

Mom is the one who consistently answers the questions: What’s for dinner? Can I wear this to school? Can I go to a sleepover? Where are my socks? Where are the kids’ immunization records? Moms are the people who know everyone else’s schedule, deliverables, events, habits, health and social conditions. They are the ones who coordinate all activities, and manage not only the household inventory, but the ‘lost and found’ storage as well.

While many moms are proud of this role - taking care of the needs of their families - the burden can get overwhelming. And because these moms often carry this burden quietly and with little complaint, it can lead to enormous stress, fatigue, irritation, a sense of being unappreciated, and destabilization of the family.

This book is based on the realization by the author that sharing responsibility and accountability, and working as a team, along the lines of the general principles of Project Management can be as effective in managing work at home as it is in companies and in public sectors.

What this book is not

This book is by no means intended to turn anyone into a professional project manager. Project management processes are created by the Project Management Institute for professional project managers. The idea for this book is to demonstrate how we can use some of the general ideas of project management to help us get work done more efficiently at home.

It is also not a self-help book on how to bring up kids or raise a family. Furthermore, it is not intended to redefine accepted roles and responsibilities at home. The author realizes that this is a touchy and complex topic with deeply set cultural and even religious implications. The roles of men and women at home are more defined and entrenched in some cultures and communities than others. It is also very much influenced by the family structure, like whether it is a single parent family, which parent works outside the home, or what environment the family is in.

The central theme of the book is managing work; some ways that the family can approach the work they do to get better results and without overwhelming any one member of the family. While that may very well require reviewing some traditional roles, along with other aspects of family management such as spending habits and family values, they are not the focus of the book. The focus is managing work.

How to use this book

The book includes personal stories, examples and some opportunities for the readers to practice the ideas they are reading about, all intended to bring the discussion to life in a practical personal and interactive way. It provides a step-by-step approach for planning and managing work.

While there are some ideas that are carried through the entire book, each chapter stands on its own and can be fully utilized without necessarily needing to have read the previous chapters first, though that is recommended. The chapters can also be read in any order depending on the reader’s interest and background in work management.

Who can use this book?

All members of the family should read this book. This includes Mom, Dad and children, single parent families, stay-home and working parent families, foster parent families, new or aspiring parents. The book is intended to be used not only by every member of the member individually but the entire family together, particularly those who manage and perform the work in the house. It can equally be valuable to anyone working with the family, interested in or impacted in any way by how work is managed in the house. This may include caretakers, and care givers, providers of home products and services.

Unintended Benefits

In the process of trying to help each other through stressful times we realized some additional benefits that we did not plan for when getting into it. Such benefits include:

• Greatly improved communication!

• Measurable stress reduction.

• Opportunities for family activities and fun!

• Reduced expenses.

• Increased responsibility and empowerment of young family members

• Quick and informed decision making

• Increased confidence in taking actions.

• Reduction of conflicts.

• Closeness and support for each other.

Accompanying website

Additional information and tools for managing tasks and projects are available on the companion website of this book, http://www.pmmom.com. The website has sample projects, free templates that can be downloaded or printed out for use, a blog, and a discussion forum for users to share project ideas, experiences and techniques. Overall, this book is one way of saying to all Moms, thank you for all you do! We hope this helps.

CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.

~ Charles Darwin

The day started for me just like any other. I left home at about 6:30 am with our youngest daughter strapped securely in her bucket seat in the back, dressed in her Catholic pre-school uniform. My wife would drop our six-year-old off at the neighborhood elementary school on her way to work. She was particularly excited as she packed lunches for the kids and herself. It was only the second day she would be driving her brand new fully equipped Honda Pilot SUV that we had bought just the weekend before to replace her worn down Volkswagen Jetta that she loved and hung unto until the poor car simply couldn’t move anymore. I dropped our daughter off at the preschool, and arrived at work just before 8:00 am. I turned on my computer and went straight to check email, looking forward to the daily motivational quotes that my wife shared with me and her co-workers every day. Today’s quote was: "Courage is being scared to death, and saddling up anyway." by John Wayne (1907-1979) American actor. Just what I needed, I thought to myself as I prepared for an afternoon meeting that I knew most attendees would rather be excused from. A critical project was about to go sideways due to unexpected events, meaning management will need to make a difficult choice of coming up with more money, allow more time to work to complete the project, or possibly both. Management doesn’t like to spend any money, let alone more than they had already committed to. They will be looking for a scapegoat.

The meeting was going as badly as I had expected, with the President and VP of Engineering practically yelling at each other over why this unexpected event was ‘unexpected’ when my phone started to buzz - I had turned off the ringer and put it on vibrate. Usually, I would ignore it until after the meeting to respond. But today it kept buzzing so persistently that I couldn’t ignore it. I pulled it out of my pocket to take-a-peek under the table. It could be from the school about the kids. It wasn’t. It was my wife. She had called six times already and the seventh call was coming in. That was so unlike her that I simply freaked out. I had to go. I immediately stood up, said something like, Sorry, guys, I have to go and walked out of the meeting.

At the other end of the phone, my wife was sobbing. I can’t drive; I can’t drive anymore! What do you mean you can’t drive? Did the van break down? I asked, trying to gage the situation. I don’t know what’s happening to me. I’m scared of driving this car! I could hear some background noise, like cars whizzing by. Where are you? I asked. I’m on the side of the freeway. I had to stop. I can’t drive. I’m really scared!. I’m on my way I said as I headed to my car without going back to my office to turn off my computer. On my way, I kept thinking: what does she mean by ‘I can’t drive’? I sped down the freeway with no regard to how fast I was driving. By the time I got to where she said she was, on the shoulder of Highway 50 at the intersection with Highway 80, she had forced herself back in the van and driven another half a mile or so and pulled over again. When I eventually caught up with her she was standing outside in the shadow of the van as though hiding from the cars rushing by. In tears, she told me she didn’t know what was happening to her and that she felt like she was floating out of the car seat when she drove. I had never heard of such experience before so I couldn’t even grasp the possibility of what she was saying.

After I had calmed her down a little, I suggested we swap vehicles; I’ll drive the van, and she could drive my Toyota Avalon. Driving as slowly as she was comfortable with, we drove both cars off the freeway to a safe side street from where we called a tow truck to come tow one of the cars home for us. The next day, we went to see her doctor. After a few tests and consultation with other doctors, it was concluded that she had suffered a severe case of panic attack, but they couldn’t agree on what could have caused it.

And so, began a four-year journey that no one ever expected. She became so frightened of driving that she could not even bear to sit under the steering wheel of a parked car. It was a life changing event for all of us, but particularly devastating and frightening for her. Here was a hyperactive mother, a high performing computer product sales lead with three young children and a husband, to take care of. She was also responsible for seven relatives some of whom had recently immigrated from other parts of the world and struggling to find their footing. Busy seven days a week, always on the road to various appointments, children’s events and extended family activities. Then suddenly she couldn’t go anywhere unless someone drove her. Yet, even while she struggled emotionally to come to terms with the new reality, she never missed a day of work, didn’t skip a single-family commitment and forced herself to follow through with every task she had in the cue. She kept going because she deeply believed that if she stopped, a lot of people who depended on her would suffer. And depending on her, we all did; so much that the concept of she needing help instead was incomprehensible and plain confusing. No one knew what to do about it. All I could do personally was make myself available as much as I could to take her around to wherever she needed to be.

During that period, as I drove her around, I watched her constantly arranging and rearranging appointments, To-Do Lists and meeting schedules, returning phone calls, balancing check books, reminding everyone of their own appointments and events. The car became an extension of her office and the home. For the first time, I was exposed to how much she juggled every day. Amazingly, most of the details were in her head. Groups of specific information were on scraps of paper and stored away in different compartments in a sizeable and rather heavy bag that she called ‘her purse’. Between her memory and the purse, she had everything she needed to run this maze of activities. But that was not all.

About the same time, there was reorganization at her job. As a result, the job she loved to do and did well enough to win awards and earn trips to Europe, talking to decision makers of Fortune 500 companies about her company’s products and services was eliminated, and she was relegated to a desk job that involved extensive typing and managing of spreadsheets behind computer screens. That was not her thing, and she hated it!

This was a very stressful time! Still I watched my wife go about her Mommy duties with the same meticulous dedication, patience, and commitment. Sometimes she didn’t feel well, sometimes angry, many times frustrated with me, the kids or her boss; occasionally happy. But once or twice, I even saw her shed a tear out of frustration and exhaustion. But not once did she fail to complete whatever she had set out to accomplish or let anyone off the hook on their commitments to the family.

It was her insistence on picking up after everyone, finishing what didn’t get finished by others, no matter how emotionally tired or physically hurting that got us seriously concerned. It got to the point where she could no longer ‘hide’ the hurting. The children became very concerned and guilty that they were the reason she was in so much pain. Yet all attempts at Mommy, you are tired; why don’t you go to bed? We’ll do the rest always drew responses like, Thanks, but no! You have school in the morning or Don’t you have a project that’s due tomorrow; I’d rather you focus on that; I’ll be fine! But she wasn’t fine. And it wasn’t just she.

It took a little while for the full impact of the incidence to sink in for all of us. Our grownup child lived eight hours away and the younger ones were both too young to drive. I became the only driver that had to shuttle everybody everywhere. Though I was doing everything I could to support her, there simply wasn’t enough time in the day to take her to work, go to work myself, and drive all the children to every event. I was already working seven days a week with a regular job, and teaching part time at the university. The children too were equally busy with classes, homework, projects, sports, and extracurricular activities.

And so, it was the combination of the late nights and early rising, even on weekends, with no end in sight, that lead us to the conclusion that we simply couldn’t continue to go on the way we were. Something had to give. She, we, couldn’t go on like that! It took us a while to figure out how we could cope.

One day, things came to a head when Mommy simply lost it and went off on all of us for not making up our minds about what we wanted for dinner. And when she decided, and spent long hours on her feet in the kitchen for us, all she got back was complaint from everyone. I’ve had it! she declared, and just dropped everything, stormed upstairs and went to bed. It was a Saturday