ABA Journal articles tend to sit in my "to read" file until I have a long flight or some idle time to quickly browse though them, so I only now came across this article about a lawyer's father-son trip up Mount Everest. Martha Neil, Climbing Everest Also Tested Lawyer's Practice Management Skills, ABA Journal: Law News Now, June 8, 2008, LINK.
Despite the title, the article doesn't go into much detail about how this endeavor involved practice management skills. But the implication should be obvious. Undertaking a challenge as difficult and dangerous as climbing Mount Everest requires an exceptionally high level of planning, with meticulous attention to detail, testing, scheduling, risk assessment, and disaster preparation.
It reminds me of a fascinating presentation I attended at a PMI Chapter meeting in Pune, India that discussed the project management lessons to be learned from dangerous, underwater cave diving. The presentation, titled "Learning from diving sports/projects," was given by Michael Waldbrenner, an entrepreneur, project manager, and Director of Global Sourcing, Healthcare & Welfare India, at TietoEnator Software Technologies Pvt. Ltd. The videos of his water-filled cave dives and his descriptions of the risks involves were captivating.
Michael did a great job demonstrating the project management lessons learned from the planning and execution of international, extreme, cave-diving projects. I particularly appreciated his focus on "traditional" project management standards and his good-natured digs at "fads" such as Agile Project Management. Not that I don't believe there is nothing to be learned from Agile and similar project management philosophies, but sometimes it is necessary to revisit the basics. My wife studied dance for many years. Throughout their careers dancers continue to practice the same basic techniques they were taught on their first day of training. It is necessary to experiment, innovate, and practice new ways of working, but you need to take care that this doesn't become a way to cover up deficiencies in your process. There's nothing like having your life on the line to refocus your attention on the basics.
Unfortunately, Michael's Power Point presentation doesn't seem to be available on-line (I'll write him and see if he'd be kind enough to share it). To get a sense of what is involved in this extreme sport, check out the Web site documenting Michael's 2001 dive at Doux de Coly, where his team set the European cave penetration record.
With all the stress and nerves involved in legal and litigation support work, it is helpful to remember that failure in our work rarely involves the risk death. Hearing about, reading about, or participating in projects like mountaineering, underwater cave diving, and the like help put things in perspective.
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