Project managing a half marathon

'So Raja, the project management course that I sent you to. Was it useful?'
'Very much.'
'Why don't you brief the team this Friday on what you learnt, so it will be a refresher for a lot of them?'

Where did my manager come from? Does he not know that courses are attended to use up department budget and not to learn something. The manager can tell the management the money given to him was all well spent so he could get more money next year (the more budget the manager has the more commanding his position is in the authority matrix) while I get free lunch and drinks for attending the course.

Back at my desk, I thought really hard to see if anything I do is ever close to project management or can be put into the frames of project management. Luckily, I had one.

Earlier in the previous evening: Ha ha, you are going to run a half marathon!! I bet you can not do that.

So that will be the project that I will manage. I will run a half marathon.

(I don't really remember where I left my course material, so I do not expect to follow all the steps one would in real project management. In between making rubber band bullets, playing sudoku and all the chattering my ears randomly picked up a few terms in the class which I will use here extensively and interchangeably.)

Project Statement: Run a half marathon

Terms of Reference: (what, where, who, which, how, when)

What am I going to do? - Run a half marathon
Who will run? I will run
How am I going to do? - That is my job. I will figure it out
When should I complete? - Before winter. (Running in winter means buying special winter running clothes. That costs money. So I save running in the summer. (This is an example of some of the best practices of project management: Save where you can))
How long should I take to complete the marathon? Nobody told me how long I should take. So I will assume I can take as long as I want as long as I complete before end of summer.
How much should the whole exercise cost? - It should not cost you more than your salary because you have no other means of income.
Where will I run? Run in the gym


What was not defined was how many times I could stop and how long my stoppage between runs could be. So I have decided to run one kilometer everyday in the next 22 days and complete my half marathon.

My budget:£ 228

Running shoes £ 80
Running t-shirt £ 15
Running shorts £ 15
Running underwear £ 8 (I figured out that I will have to wear a running underwear as I live in the UK. UK has more security cameras than people and I will not be surprised if there is a camera at the base of the treadmill.)
Pre-run meal 22 X £ 2
Post-run pizza 22 X £ 3 (Motivation is key to success. Unless I am motivated with a pizza at the end of the run I will not be able to get through the whole distance)


Stakeholders:

Get to know my stakeholders:

High influence - high support: Boston: 'Right-o'. He has completed 2 full marathons and always complains about his aching leg when he finishes the race. He comes from the stone age. He has no Internet connection and nowhere to live. There is rumour that he currently lives in his cubicle.

High support - low influence: David: 'Hey, how you going!'. David is my housemate. We eat pizzas together. He will be more than happy if I tell him our meal every evening is going to be a pizza for the next 22 days. I intend to give him a 2% stake in 'lazy-man inventions'. He invented the idea of piling up used plates and dishes until we use up everything in the house and wash them just once a week instead of spending an hour daily at the sink. He is trying to convince me to buy a bathtub so we can fill it with used plates. But as you would have seen, he falls in the low influence category and so we are not buying a tub in the near future.

Low support - low influence: Jinku: 'Darling'. He is Indian. I am Indian. He can not lift 5 kg dumb-bells, which automatically means I can not lift 5 kg dumb-bells. Or he will at least say so. His life revolves around women (2D & 3D. Do not mistake the Ds for the 'Ds'. The Ds stand for dimensions. A 2D woman is anyone on print and Internet while a 3D woman the one that walks around in flesh and blood), although he has not spoken to a single female species in the last 8 years I have known him.

High influence - low support: My other me: 'Hello, James Bond.' My other me likes to wear suits and sunglasses, drive super fast convertibles with a cigar in the mouth and 3 lovely ladies in the 3 other seats in the car. So he does not like to wear shorts and run in the gym. And unless he runs, I don't run. That explains his high influence - low support tag.

If you looked at the pictures of the stakeholders, you will observe the high influence people always look up and the low influence people look down. This should help you identify the high influence and low influence people in your offices.

Critical path analysis:

Critical path analysis tells you how you tactically manage running the 1 km. Once you have had your pre-run meal, pick a treadmill that is right behind that pretty girl in short shorts and tight t-shirt chugging along in the cycle. 1 km is a long distance and so you will need all the motivation you can take to complete and pretty ladies are good motivation.

The first 250m: Walking is slow running. So start with a walk but keep swinging your hands up and down so it creates an impression that you are running hard. Try to adjust the elevation to either a flat or negative slope if you can. ( ♫ Its another day in paradise)

The second 250m: Try to run this part. This part is going to be the hardest. Mysteriously, however long you keep your chin up and run and finally look at the time passed, it will not be more than 15 seconds. So start with your usual style of running. You must be able to cross the first 100m this way. To cross the next 100m, imagine yourself to be Arnold Schwarzenegger and try to imitate his style of running. When you come close to completing this 100m you will come to know that even Arnold Schwarzenegger feels tired after running 100m. So muscle does not work at all times. Try the no-muscle run for the next 50m. Run like you have no bones or muscles in your body and let every joint go in every direction. But the time you get used to running this way the next 50m would have also passed.

The third 250m: When you have reached this stage you have crossed half the distance. Although you will want to throw the towel and walk away, you must hang on. ( ♫ I will survive) And I know just the way to hang on. Hold on to the bar in front of the treadmill and let the treadmill drag you for the next 250m. Let your tongue out and pant as hard as you can to keep yourself cool. Dogs hang their tongues out and pant to keep themselves cool. You will by now have noticed that the girl in front of you would have also found you to be cool as she stares at you without blinking her eyelids for the next 30 seconds.

Last 250m: Whenever you run long distance, it is advisable to cool down. Cooling down after you finish your 1km is waste of time and energy. So I suggest you cool down in this 250m. So bring the speed down and start walking again until you hit the 1km mark. Job well done for the day! and its pizza time.

I do this for 22 days and I finish the half marathon. By putting it all down on paper, I have proof that I listened hard in the course and can put theory into practice. My manager will be happy about this when I brief the gathering with the same material this Friday.