Donna Fitzgerald

Let me begin by offering my vision of what I hope to accomplish by writing this blog.  For background let me say that for the past 12 years I’ve moderated a worldwide discussion group focused on project management.  It’s been a wonderful experience but it’s taken up what little spare time I’ve had, leaving me short on the creative juices necessary for writing my own blog.  Since coming to Gartner I’ve turned the reins to NewGrange over to other capable hands and have found myself missing the opportunity to reflect of what’s going on around me.  I hope this site will be give me a forum to offer my somewhat quirky perspectives on what works and what doesn’t and how we can focus our energy in a manner that creates results.

I’m passionate about PPM.  I was hired to manage my first large project in May of 1979 (I was of course  only 12 years old) and I still find myself reflecting on what went right and what went wrong with that project even today.  In concept this is called double loop learning and is the best way for any of us to continue to grow and develop.  One interesting fact I’ve noticed from revisiting the past occasionally is the changes in my own perceptions.  Five years after my first project completed I would have told you the things I did wrong were A, B, and C.  Ten years later I would have told you that I should have done D, E, F but the truth was at the time I wasn’t experienced enough to even know what D, E and F meant.  Some of what I hope to do here is to point out the bridges that I should have seen between A and D and B and E, so that it might be easier for others to move faster than I did.  I also hope to tell stories here since it is only through a story that tacit knowledge can really be transmitted since it is the story that carries the context.

I would be doing a disservice to those of you who are considering reading this blog if I didn’t also acknowledge that I have a tendency to state things in the declarative case.  All my opinions are very strongly expressed and yet the truth is that I have no trouble changing my mind about anything as I learn more, generally through dialogue with others.  And it is that dialogue that I hope will be a hallmark of this blog.  What I’m hoping for is that I will say something in my usual forceful way and that all of you reading will let me know what you’ve experienced that might be different from what I’ve experienced which would allow us to come to a joint conclusion somewhere in the middle.