Introduction

Dear Fissure Friends,

 

I was reading Geof Lory's article on the "Perfection Game" and it got me thinking about perfection and what do we mean by perfection. At first thought you might say that bowling a "300" game (also known as a "perfect" game) is an example of perfection, but if you scrutinized each of the 12 strikes, I'm sure you could find 1 that was not exactly in the pocket. And what about a hole-in-one in golf? Is that perfection? It might be for that hole, but that's just one hole out of 18.

 

Perfection - according to Webster, "is the state or quality of being or becoming perfect". I'm glad Webster included "becoming", because I would have a tough time identifying anything about me that is perfect (and I'm sure that all who know me would readily agree, especially my family). But I have to admit that at times in my life I have felt perfection if only for an instant or a few moments in time. What I'm referring to is that feeling you get when everything just feels right and you wonder how it could ever feel any better.

 

I hope you have all experienced this feeling many times in your life. Maybe it was when you held a new born child for the first time, or got that first job offer, or first promotion, or hit the perfect golf shot, or tasted that perfect meal. At that moment in that environment it just feels perfect. But perfection doesn't stay around for long; the baby cries, you start to worry about meeting your new responsibilities (job, promotion, or baby), and that feeling of perfection leaves. But I'm OK with that because the fun and the learning are in the journey, and the reward is the satisfaction of a job well done and that beautiful feeling you get when the perfect moment happens.

 

Mike Wold has contributed again and this time he shares with us his experience and "learnings" from planning and managing a volunteer team of project managers in painting a house (Paint-A-Thon) once a year. Mike's shows us that even as "seasoned" project managers, the "soft" things are the most important in keeping a team productive and happy.

 

As I said earlier, Geof Lory's article is about the "Perfection Game". It is an interesting and effective process improvement approach you will want to try. This time Geof tells us how it was used to provide feedback for him.

 

Our upcoming public workshops are in the left hand panel - our computer simulation based workshops are an effective and fun way to learn AND EARN PDUs. Make sure you also check out what's happening at Fissure (Fissure News).

 

This issue contains:

• Project Parenthood. Learning and Feedback by Geof Lory
  
• Lessons From the Paint-A-Thon by Mike Wold
  
• Fissure News
  

 

Thanks for reading and have a great quarter,

 

Jesse Freese

Fissure, President