ZCOPE Blog

25 wishes to the project fairy

I learned about the idea of the project fairy in an article written by Thomas Mauch: he presented a very interesting method he found in the book „Kurz(zeit)coaching mit Langzeitwirkung“ (Short (term) coaching with long term effect) by Peter Szabó and Insoo Kim Berg.

In order to avoid usual bullshit bingo terms such as „efficiency, goal orientation, sustainability, etc.“, Szabó and Berg recommend another type of question:

„She couldn‘t be with us in this meeting but we have a fairy in our team. She‘s responsible for the miracles in the project. Each and everyone has one wish: what would the situation look like after your wish is fulfilled?

A terrific idea to get real wishes you can work with. I changed it a little bit: I search for wishes that apply to every project. So I asked a lot of people what their wishes would be. And here are the first 25 answers (alphabetically by company name):

1 Russell E. Perry, CEO, 123people.com, Austria
My wish is… a cappuccino with a small spoonful of brown sugar and a warm croissant each morning – in return I will take care of the expenses claim by myself :-)

2 Richard Joerges, Owner, contentXperten, Germany
My wish is… that all project members communicate with each other honestly and via the previously agreed channels (Wiki, internal blog), that they solve problems instead of complaining and finish the project in the defined timeframe and with the defined ressources.

3 Karsten Sauer, Project leader season ticket online, Deutsche Bahn, Germany
My wish is… that the project fairy inspires all project members with the same understanding of requirements, priorities and proper approaches.

4 Tilman Eberle, VP PR & Communications, doodle.com, Switzerland
My wish is… that all the boring but important to do‘s the team is postponing for a long time are done at once.

5 Marcus Pernkopf, CEO, emailcharity.com, Austria
My wish is… high quality and results meeting all interests.

6 Christian Adelsberger, Product manager, Evolaris Next Level, Austria
My wish is… that all team members bring up potential problems and risks at the beginning of the projekt and not when they get critical just to prevent conflicts.

7 Frank Holzer, CFO of a family trust, Austria
My wish is… that people I work with were more straightforward and to the point.

8 Daniel Petri, COO, fatfoogo, Austria
My wish is… that customers are more flexible when it comes to launch dates. Often they cement the date, don’t provide their deliverables and believe we as a software company can make everything possible with a little bit of „stardust“.

9 Thomas Konrad, Head of Corporate Marketing and Communications, Gebrüder Weiss, Austria
My wish is… that assignments are issued clearly and explicitely and completed precisely and in time. Eighter I’m part of the solution or part of the problem ;-).

10 Stefani Akins, Systems Administrator, General Dynamics IT, Germany
My wish is… that project members stick to the project plan and don’t finish their tasks  somewhere along the line.

11 Bettina Turnher, Project manager, University of Liechtenstein, Principality of Liechtenstein
My wish is… that I experience joy, ease and growth in my projects.

12 Christoph Wallner, Product manager, HUBER TRICOT, Austria
My wish is… that the project fairy handles all the tasks that were forgotten in the (kick off) meetings at the beginning of the project – immediately and without further costs.

13 Alexander Gugumuck, Consultant, INITS, Austria
My wish is… that the project fairy gives all project owners a clear insight of what they really want and the capability to communicate it in a precise an understandable manner.

14 Barbara Barnucz, Consultant, Martrix, Austria
My wish is… that projects have enough slack time thus not most of the tasks are done in the last moment; detailed briefings with budget definitions and rather a little too much than too few information.

15 Mirjam Mieschendahl, Owner, morgenjungs.com, Austria
My wish is… that in case of obstacles, accusations are avoided and we all together search for solutions. There is always a solution.

16 Eberhard Huber, Owner, pentaeder, Germany
My wish is… first I wanted to ask for three wishes. At second thought I´d rather wish honest personal communication and real commitments instead of impersonal option-talk. I want to hear statements like “I need a new PC” instead of “someone needs a new PC”. This is even more important in the status meeting. There I wish I heard “I will have the job finished by Monday” instead of “I´m going to look for a solution”.

17 Andreas Reisenbauer, Owner, SYSCOMM, Austria
My wish is… that at the beginning of projects, the fairy clears up all the resentments in the team and dissolves smouldering conflicts into thin air.

18 Peter Eich, CEO, Toursprung, Germany
My wish is… to eliminate the void between detail-decisions. The decision-making procedure is really slow. It consists of a handful of detail decisions that each time take just a few minutes. Nevertheless it takes days or weeks in order to come to them.

19 Steffen Kühr, Co-founder, tripwolf.com, USA
My wish is… I would love the fairy to structure and document the relevant learnings and experiences stored in my head to make sharing with colleagues faster and easier!

20 Christian Lutz, CEO, ueber.mut, Austria
My wish is… that the project fairy motivates me to approach things earlier, before there are lots of red flags.

21 Stefan Rauchegger,  Software Engineer, United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime
My wish is… that the project team has a mutually fault-tolerant, respect- and faithful mindset. Thus, all problems and obstacles can be overcome.

22 Oliver Welge, Consultant, project leader and Software engineer, weluse, Germany
My wish is… that all stakeholders abide to the agreed dates.

23 Martin Hügli, Manager Subscriptions and OpenSocial, XING, Germany
My wish is… that projects spread over national borders really do perform – to do this we need a unified language and collaboration tools.

24 Alexander Tavdidischwili, CEO, Yukoono, Germany
My wish is… more time, more manpower… and a lot more creative thinking around the corner.

25 Constance Stickler, Product manager, ZCOPE, Austria
My wish is… that from the beginning on, all stakeholders put all the information on the table. There shouldn‘t be „secrets“ that will emerge anyway.

What about you? What would be your wish to the project fairy?