I’m going to News Foo in Phoenix in a few weeks, and I’m thinking of proposing an Ignite talk there called the Management Wisdom of Battlestar Galactica. I’m a huge fan of the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica series that was on Syfy. Besides having lead a rag-tag fleet of the last humans left alive in a Cylon holocaust, I think Admiral William Adama would have been a pretty decent project manager. Here’s what I’ve come up with as project management wisdom from the Admiral and the show:
Sine Qua Non. Means “without which not” or the must-have thing that makes everything else possible. I’ve argued that a good news app focuses on one thing and does it really well and that if you can’t say what that one thing is clearly, you don’t have a project.
“It’s not enough to survive … One has to be worthy of survival.” If you want to do something special, you have to commit to it. This is as much about project groups as it is projects. It can be summed up thusly: Clock punchers should GTFO.
“Then grab your gun and bring in the cat.” If you believe in what you are doing, then come prepared to fight for it. Stand your ground. Make an argument. Fight to make your project better.
“Sooner or later, the day comes when you can’t hide from the things that you’ve done anymore.” There’s getting the job done and getting the job done right. Any corners you cut now will come back to you. Get it done, get it online, get people using it, iterate often, but know your technical debt will come due one day.
“Sometimes you have to roll a hard six.” A hard six is two threes on a pair of six-sided dice in the game of craps. It’s one of the highest odds rolls in the game, but with higher risk comes higher reward. If you aren’t gambling big, why are you playing?
Thoughts? I kinda dig the SciFi movie explains Thing Not Related To Science Fiction genre of lightning talk. I’ve given a talk called The Matrix Explains the Current News Business several times and it works pretty well. Not sure about this one. Let me know if you have a thought.
My other idea? What can the Zen Buddhist concept of the Beginner’s Mind tell us about the future of journalism.