ZCOPE Blog

15 new wishes to the project fairy

Some time ago, I asked some people what would be there wish to the project fairy and wrote a post about it: 25 wishes to the project fairy. Here are some interesting new wishes to the lovely little helper:

1 Stefan Kalteis, CEO, www.dealhamster.com, Austria
My wish is… that the project fairy keeps all administrative activities at bay.

2 Sigrid Hauer, CEO, Consulting4Quality – Blog Projektgeschichten, Germany
My wish is… that even stakeholders understand that good collaboration tools are essential to keep the communication up & running, but don‘t solve communication problems itself.

3 Christian Gaisberger, Developer, Dorner ASP AG, Switzerland
My wish is… that solutions will be searched for based on the experience of the single team members and nevertheless an authority takes the final decision. The right ones and at the right time!

4 Blundstone Osterberger, Engagement Director Europe, huge, US/UK/FR/SWE
My wish is… that everyone understands contingency when doing time, cost & material planning is there to account for unexpected turns a project takes, and not just to blow up budgets.

5 Marina Zubcic, Consultant, ICG Infora GmbH, Austria
My wish is… that people focus on developing and discussing solutions rather than explaining at length why they are behind schedule and how it sure isn’t their fault and that everyone shows up prepared.

6 Mark Buzinkay, CEO, Idea Lounge, Austria
My wish is… that the fairy turns into Herman Dune, gives everybody a good reason to smile and a sense of humour to work enthusiastically on the most boring tasks, because we know that there is more in life than this project.

7 Alexander Aberer, Senior Developer/Scrum-Master, LearnLift, Austria
My wish is… that client and project team don‘t talk past each other or don‘t address acute problems. They should talk fair and square and aks all questions so that they will be answered  to the utmost satisfaction of all involved parties.

8 Benjamin Spiss, Producer Gambling, Rabcat Computer Graphics GmbH, Austria
My wish is… serious effort estimations instead of tossing a random figure thus I won‘t be annoying any longer.

9 Andrea Hammer, Project coordination, Blog projektlotse, Germany
My wish is… that every sub-project has exactly the status given in the status report. All this should be visualised as dream sequence in a movie (my favourite director would be Hitchcock :-).

10 Jürgen Pansy, Board member, sms.at, Austria
My wish is… that she does us a disservice and clears all elephants out of the room – at least for the meetings.

11 Sebastian Heinzel, CEO, www.tripwolf.com, Austria
My wish is… that the project fairy speaks all the languages on this planet – if she‘s tiny enough, one could put her into the ear.

[Constance: A nice idea... must be from the famous book „The Hichthiker‘s Guide to Projects“ ;-)]

12 Tathagat Varma, Senior director business operations, Yahoo – Blog Manage Well, India
My wish is… that the project fairy takes care of all risks that I forgot to identify :)

13 Marlis Rumler, CEO, uboot.com, Austria
My wish is… that every member of the team, no matter what his job description is, gains the ability to look beyond his/her own nose, so solutions with foresight can be found quicker and easier.

14 Oliver Merz, Operations Manager, Venyon GmbH, Germany
My wish is… lesser meetings that are lengthened due to unnecessary information and discussions that should better be discussed in private.

15 Sebastian Manhart, CEO professional group, Wirtschaftskammer Vorarlberg, Austria
My wish is… the guarantee that all members of my project team -  no matter if internal or external – have all the necessary information about the current project status available.

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?