Dear Diary....

Early in my career, a person I worked with and who I shall be eternally grateful to,  took me aside and shared some of her work secrets with me.  One of these was to write a work diary each day. My personality type means I am pathologically averse to any more documentation than is necessary. As a project manager, this  button gets pushed on a regular basis. So why would I want to create even more paperwork? – I asked her this. Her answer for me was an a-ha! moment. (Clouds parting, burst of sunlight kind of thing....)

“Because all project documentation has a purpose, but sometimes the combination of all those purposes still leaves a gap in knowledge and detail”

Writing just a few lines or bullets each day about your project work can pull all the other documents together. You may never need it, but trust me, when you do, that minutes effort each day will seem worth it. A typical entry for me would be something like:

“Morning in Project Steering committee. Discussed over-runs. Was a strong disagreement between finance and HR regarding over-runs and end of financial year issues resulting. CEO made decision after 20 mins. Committee followed and agreed to extend go-live. Afternoon updating reports.”

Note the highlighted words. These are the value – they bring context where the change register would probably drily state and date “Agreed to extend Go live.”  Context can be vital when reviewing past actions. This is the value of the diary. Even if you are never questioned, you can still use the diary when you close out a project and have to review activities from a long while ago.

If it helps, I now think of the normal project documentation  like cans of beer, and my diary as the plastic bit that holds them all together in a coherent and useful way.

Happy diarising!

After a decade as a management consultant specialising in Project Management processes and technologies, Ross Andren brings a wealth of PM and CM experience across multiple countries and industries.  He has a strong technology background and is passionate about bringing the focus back to the people relationships in business through training and education. 

The UXC Training Group, comprising the Australian College of Project Management, the Australian College of Change Management and the IT Management College, is your single point of contact for building capability across your organisation.