Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips

If work is important enough to be performed, the product is important enough to be inspected.

Someone is supposed to do something. Okay. Do it. Next. Right? This is a note to project managers and those who may think we don’t need or maybe need project managers:

You get what you inspect, not what you expect.

That’s an old saying. Too bad it isn’t followed often.

There is much that can be abused here. Let’s try to establish some definitions so that maybe we don’t abuse one another.

Project Manager: a person who manages the work—not the workers.

The Work: those things that persons do.

When a person performs some work, there is a product (sometimes a service). Is the product there? Does the product meet expectations? Does the product serve its purpose? These are some of the questions the Project Manager should answer. The Project Manager finds these answers by INSPECTING the product.

Notice that INSPECT is more than, “Is the product there?”

“Adults don’t need this!” said the adult who always does their work and does it well.

Reality check: not all adults always do their work and do it well. There are many reasons why many of us have bad days and do bad work. It happens. That is why we need persons on the project who INSPECT. That is usually the Project Manager.

Are you a Project Manager? INSPECT. If you don’t know the product well enough to INSPECT, assign that to someone else. It must happen. If doing the work is important, ensuring that the work is performed as expect is important.