Do You Have a Personal Board of Advisors? Should You?

by Doug Boebinger, MS, PMP^®

After more than 30 years of running projects and over 20 years of teaching people about project management, there is one trait that I have found in every successful project manager – they know what they don’t know.

Project managers, new to the career, try to show that they know it all, they can handle it all and they can get it all done.

Experienced project managers have figured out that that isn’t true.

I propose the next step in your career development may be to develop a personal Board of Advisors.  One person I know calls his a personal “Board of Directors” – whatever the name, they can be very helpful.

No one knows everything so the more eyes, ears and brains working together on a situation the better.

Putting together Board of Advisors for a project, more often referred to as a Project Steering Committee, is common for medium to large sized projects.

But a personal board may be a good next step for your career.  It could be a formal group of people that you meet with on a regular basis or a network of people you contact on an ad-hoc basis for specific purposes.

The key is to have them in place before you need them – just like any good network.

They can provide insight into situations you may be too close to, knowledge about aspects of the project you are unfamiliar with and support for difficult decisions which need to be made.

So, think about developing your personal Board of Advisors.

You may find it beneficial.

I have – at least, that is what my Board of Advisors told me to say…

© by Integrated Process Developers, Inc., all rights reserved.  Please contact us for permission before reprinting in whole or in part.