I went on a one night cub scout family camping trip with our pack this Spring. I pulled in late (family tradition) and began setting up our pop-up camper and was a little embarrassed to find we were the only ones pulling a camper this year. Another leader looked at me shaking his head, and said:
"Ed, …. a camper??? ... Really???"
I said: "Yes, you know why? ……………
Because I don’t own an RV!" (bah dump bump!)
That got some chuckles, and I had a few other thoughts too. One was that this is a family campout, and my whole family is actually here – not too many others could say the same. So if it meant pulling a pop-up for an overnight to have my entire family including a pre-teen in attendance, it was worth it. My other thought was that it will be nice to be above ground and dry if we get the kind of rain that was threatening in the skies. On some level though, he was right. It is just not quite worth the effort of setting up a pop-up camper for a single night stay. By the time you figure out where everything and everyone will go, it is time to start packing it up again.
With my late arrival and my long list of setup tasks, surely our family would be last to be done and scrambling to help out with our Den’s dinner prep. Setting up next to our pop-up was a father and son with a tent that the dad had not set up in a long time. As our pop-up camper setup progressed the big blue tent next to us was still looking more like a pile of poles and a tarp than home for a night. “What is the green marking for?” asked the son, “Try putting this pole and that bendy one together” said the dad. This camping trip is far from high-adventure so you have a lot of families that are not regular campers and they often bring a borrowed tent or a brand new one. It’s family camping and struggling through unfamiliar territory like this is just part of the experience. A cub scout leader came over to help out and now my camper was about half way set up. A few minutes later another parent joined in and four people spent another 30 minutes before it was completely set up.
It was about this time that I made a connection with project management. As a profession we talk about planning incessantly. It is foundational. It is a major part of our PM value that we provide to a project as a PM. Nothing that I can think of is more acutely evident of the value of a plan than trying to set up an unfamiliar tent without one. I saw it that weekend, and I’ve lived it myself more than once! Now, I’m betting good money that the manufacturer of this tent has marketing folks that will tell you and probably even show you on their website how it can be set up in under 5 minutes with two people - probably with a hand tied behind their backs too. Instead it took an hour with as many as 4 people helping - thats 10 minutes effort instead of roughly 150 minutes of effort.
The only difference between our cub scout campers and the manufacturer is that they have the plan and slightly practiced people to set up the tent. The plan shows what is needed for parts and tools (resources), site preparation, what steps to take, what order they need to occur (precedence and dependencies), and what done looks like (clear goals and quality) (or a tent with vestibule!). And usually this plan provides even more. The directions (Plan) will describe a variety of things to avoid (risks) (WARNING: KEEP ALL FLAME AND HEAT SOURCES AWAY FROM THIS TENT FABRIC), and even mitigation strategies (Call 1-800-TENTHELP for assistance or replacement parts).
So if you are ever in a situation where the value of planning and creating a plan is being questioned, give me a call – I think I could get my hands on a big blue tent you can borrow and demonstrate. (I know it does not get used much!)
Do great things! (In tents) (Intense?)
Ed Sullivan, PMP
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