“Good management is the art of making problems so interesting and their solutions so constructive that everyone wants to get to work and deal with them.” - Paul Hawken

I love Legos.  My boys have accumulated quite a few sets over the past couple of birthdays.  I have never been disappointed with the layout of how to put the sets together.  They are very precise and so well thought out that it got me thinking about Project Management. 

The Lego design is the epitome of the Project Management 101.  When you look at the packaging of the sets you see the final product.  When you open up the package you see all the little pieces it takes to make up the final product.  Enclosed is an instruction book that gives the exact quantity and location of each Lego piece.  Once you open up each of the smaller bags and verify the quantity of each piece you are ready to start building.  Lego walks you through each page telling you how and when to put the pieces together.  Even the most difficult Lego sets are easy when you break them down into their respective categories.

This also rings true for Project Management.  As a Project Manager you need to become the Lego Company.  You need to be the guiding path for putting the pieces together.  You need to first see the scope of what is expected from the final project.  Once that is established, you need to reverse engineer the Project into its pieces.  Once you know what your quantity of pieces are and where they go, you are ready to build. 

All projects have their issues, whether it is scope creep or missing pieces, this is even true for Lego.  We had one set that was missing two pieces.  So we called Lego and they sent us the pieces free of charge, which made me love Lego even more.  They were willing to take care of us to complete our set and our Lego experience. 

I realize this is an oversimplification of Project Management but it is a great way to understand the basics of breaking down any project into it's key components and focusing on the final product that will be turned over to the client.  I think every Project Manager new hire should be tested by giving them a set of Legos to test the Basics of Project Management, it will quickly be evident whether they will succeed.