I am replaceable

It sometimes grips us with fear to hear that we as employees are actually replaceable. Oftentimes we try to do our job to the best of our abilities to a achieve a point in time that people will start thinking... "What will i do without him/her?" You know, people often think that being irreplaceable ensures job security.

Well... yes and no.

If someone is irreplaceable, he is also unpromoteable. This is why some good technical people remain well... good technical people. The tendency for management is to place people where they can be most effective. Irreplaceability is a sign of inflexibility. If management cannot move you around because you're the only person that can do the job... then chances are you're stuck there for life (or until the role/post becomes unnecessary).

The first thing someone should do once he gets assigned to a position is to find his replacement. This is otherwise known as "succession planning". If you've read one of john maxwell's books (21 laws of leadership methinks) you'll read about the "law of explosive growth / law of reproduction" which pretty much states that good leaders are capable of multiplying themselves - empowering their teams to do what they they can do. These are all in-line with ensuring proper succession planning. Managers who are capable of sharing knowledge and workload to his/her subordinates are more likely to be able to accomplish more and hence improve the overall performance of the team. On the other hand, managers who keep everything to themselves are bound to fail because he/she is overburdened with work since no one in his team can help/assist him.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Currently, I've asked my boss to move me in another role in the office. Although its much much smaller in scope - it's something that I've been itching to do for some time. In doing so, I had to be replaced by people from my team. I guess I'm just glad to see that the team is still functioning well and in order. I do not expect my lieutenants to manage the same way as me, but because they know what I do and what needs to be done - they get the job done.

The Plan

The Project Plan is effectively the only tangible deliverable a project manager does within a project. Everything else is a supporting activity to the actual deliverables. The ability to make a good plan therefore shows the difference between a good PM and a so-so PM. It would be easy to think that as long as you have all the information you need, planning becomes better. To an extent that is true. Unfortunately, you will never have all the information that you would need in creating a plan.

So now what?

There is a concept in Project Planning known as " Rolling Wave Planning" which states that there is a constant need to plan and replan in waves based on the information gathered at every wave. A common misconception by noob PM's is that you plan once and then execute. However there is rarely the situation and unless the project is soooo simple this would rarely be the case. Planning is an ongoing and recurring activity. There is no shame on replanning since we need to accept that we cannot run with the previous plan. It should however be noted that constant replanning is also a sign of ineffectiveness of the PM. We replan because there is new information or events that need to be considered in the project not because we forgot or did not include these information from the start.

It's 2009. Time to start (re) planning.