While visiting the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York
City last month, I was struck by the small painted wooden models of Egyptian
boats that were found in the Tomb of Meketre, in Thebes, in the year 1920. The
artifacts date back 4000 years to 1981-1975 B.C. and are a remarkable example
of model building, funerary traditions, boat building, and naval architecture.
But as I looked at how one of the vessels is being paddled against the
prevailing wind, it occurred to me that they also represent the challenges of
Project Management in today's shipbuilding and manufacturing world.
Here's why...
I read that the model boats were representative of the voyage
the Theban Official, Meketre, took to the afterlife. Ancient Egyptians placed a great
deal of importance on the afterlife, and actually looked forward to the
transition from present life on earth to the afterlife. I think we should place
the same importance in our projects. As exciting and rewarding as current projects
are, we should look forward to the afterlife: the next project.
Meketre, like most high-ranking Egyptians, took a variety of
items with him in death so that he had them at his disposal in the afterlife. We
should follow his example. As I consider our current projects, I ask myself what
things I can take with me into the afterlife, or the next project. With special
attention on how I want to continuously improve each new project, I created a
small list:
- A list of project inputs – what we were given to start with and what we were provided with throughout the life of the project
- An analysis of the inputs – special attention to quality, problems, issues, timeliness
- Lessons learned - internal
- Best practices – internal developments and how they helped the project
- Metrics and historical data – how we performed, analyzed internally
- Detailed information about the stakeholders – in order to link the identity of stakeholders with success or risk
- Customer feedback – in order to get the most important opinion and analysis of all, which is an external evaluation of our performance.
Finally, how do we actually transition from the current
project on to the next? Just like the ancient Egyptians, we celebrate!
Imagine…did Meketre ever conceive that he would have impact
on the life of a small business 4000 years later? Makes you realize that you
never know the extent of your actions on this earth…or the afterlife!
For more information about Ancient Egyptians, and this
particular exhibit of model boats found in Meketre’s tomb, visit The
Metropolitan Museum of Art website:
