We’ve heard an awfully lot about hope over the past two years: hope for change, hope for a better life, hope for our country, our youth, and our tomorrow. There is a distinct line between hoping and wishing. Wishing is a longing for something fantastical and mystical where the outcome is magical and out of our control. Hope, on the other hand, is also a longing, but it’s feasible, personal, and the outcome is often very much in our control.
While I think it's important to have hope for our lives it's easy to lean on wishing and mistake it for hoping. I’ve been making some major adjustments in my life as a result of what I’ve been hoping for. I’m tired of only hoping so now I’m doing.
In project management you can’t hope the project will go well – and do nothing to make it happen. You can’t hope the software gets created, hope the project team does what they’re supposed to do, and hope the vendors deliver on time. Manage a project based on hope and you won’t be managing much of anything for long.
Project management is about getting things done. Sure, you can hope things go well in your project but until you take action and create a plan things probably won’t happen at all. And having a plan doesn’t do much for you unless you and the project team are willing to execute that plan.
It’s romantic and pleasant to talk about hope but hope can only take you so far. If you want to accomplish anything you need hope, you need something to look forward to, but sooner or later you’ve got to get busy getting things done. And when things are done, when things are moving towards becoming a reality, it is a wonderful feeling. In my life as things are evolving it’s surreal that the plans I’ve made are coming into fruition. Today seemed dreamlike and it was as if time stood still and passed all at once. Today the evidence of hope, the result of action, and the fulfillment of intent reached a major milestone in my project.
I believe that when these moments happen it is important to pause, to be aware, and consider the magnitude of what’s occurring. Life and projects are really made up of key, decisive moments. A friend sent me this little Proverb today and it captures exactly what I’m feeling just now: Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life.
