Falling off the yellow brick road
When Dorothy and her band of mysteriously happy creatures ventured down that long, yellow bricked road that eventually took them to the city of Oz do you think they ever stopped for a moment and wondered if they needed to bring their passports? Did they need to bring their identification and $5.00 so that if stopped by a police officer they wouldn’t get ticketed for vagrancy?
What if they got half way down the road and Oz closed? But nobody knew that Oz closed so like the Griswold family the sorry group of misfits makes the rest of the trek for no apparent reason. They get to the outer gates of the city and it’s CLOSED FOR REPAIRS. Dorothy whines on through half a dozen more horribly written songs before Wendy, the good witch of the North arrives to magically whisk them all back to their bedrooms and end the movie before anyone figures out that there was no point to the journey in the first place.
What if all the main characters had a meeting and decided on spliting the project into several phases? After hours of discussion they spend 30 minutes writing down all the general ideas discussed, targeted their goals, and then decided collectively that they were ready to set out for their mission. They get up, walk away from the meeting and Dorothy goes and gets the red slippers off the dead witch, dances with the munchkins for a bit and then goes and waits patiently at the beginning of the yellow brick road. Meanwhile the tin man goes home and finds out that the latest episode of The Shield is going to run an all night marathon and decides to stay home for a bit and wait for further instructions. The poor brainless scarecrow gets up from the meeting, walks out of the room and straight out across the yellow brick road into oncoming traffic and gets hit by a car. The injury is minimal due to the physical aspects of his body but it takes him hours to re-stuff himself and by the time he gets himself up and walking again he has no memory of the meeting or the project. The cowardly lion witnesses the car accident and decides that the yellow brick road is far too dangerous for travel. He refuses anything to do with it and promptly sits down and worries about what may happen to himself next.
Getting a few people together to do a few simple things can sometimes feel impossible. If you’re Dorothy you feel defeated at this point. Cheated, even. If you don’t give up at some point or decide to leave and go off in your own direction, you end up being afraid to ask what’s gone wrong in the first place. A little direction is needed not only for Dorothy, but for everyone in attendance at that meeting. And let’s not forget the importance of everyone going in the same direction.
Dorothy wants to go home. Scarecrow wants a brain. Tin man a heart. Lion, courage. How can they get all of these seemingly impossible tasks done in time. A wizard. And that wizard lives way outta town somewhere and the only advice we’re given is to follow the yellow brick road. So what happens when you get sick of that road? What if I fall off the yellow brick road and I’m not properly insured? What if the group gets attacked by a gaggle of flying monkeys? Some situations are more important than others to take into consideration before embarking on a long trip. With adequate planning and knowledge, a small group of people can overcome any obstacle set in their path. Sometimes it’s the path that’s not clear. Other times the path changes and sometimes momentarily disappears. I sometimes wonder if this mighty group of wanderers might have saved themselves a lot of time (and singing) if they would’ve simply asked for a project manager.
Taken from Wikipedia:
Project management is the ensemble of activities (such as tasks) concerned with successfully achieving a set of goals. This includes planning, scheduling and maintaining progress of the activities that comprise the project. Reduced to its simplest project management is the discipline of maintaining the risk of failure at as low a value as necessary over the lifetime of the project. Risk of failure arises primarily from the presence of uncertainty at all stages of a project.
March 31st, 2005 at 7:36 am
What if you find out that the yellow brick road in is not actually yellow, but #F1DE00?
What if the yellow brick road is still under construction? So, miles ahead of you is group of exploited, non-English speaking midgets from the emerald city working on this road while you are traveling on it? This would not be problem at all but, the foreman cannot decide which color of yellow should be used. Foreman decides to paint the road with different shades of yellow (even trying green at one point) until he finds one that it to his liking. Even this indecisive foreman would not be a problem he if only built this one road, but because he the brother of someone who works for the OZ government, he was won contracts to build all 42 existing roads, and highway interchanges in the land OZ and they are all yellow.
What if half way down this road, Dorothy gets on e-mail on her blackberry from a client she has not heard from in about three months, despite her constant e-mail and phone calls, asking why their site is not complete?
Holla Back!
March 31st, 2005 at 2:57 pm
Those are all excellent points my friend. I believe that #F1DE00is a great yellow indeed. A fine yellow to use for the brick road.
As far as the midgets go, are these migrant workers organized? Dare I even mention the word UNION? Because if they are your yellow brick road is gonna cost you. And since Oz appears to be such a rich city that houses wizards and the like, are the tax payers pay for the upkeep of said yellow road? And if so what if the yellow brick road becomes the yellow brick tollway? Someone better tell Dorothy and the others that they’ll need to each bring 10 quarters with them for the trip!
I could go on in this format for hours. Thanks man. You really brightened my day with your comment. It was golden!