Project Management Laws

Project Management Laws, Quotations and Sayings

Project Management Laws

If it can go wrong it will - Murphy's law.

If it can't possibly go wrong, it will - O'Malley's corollary to Murphy's

law.

It will go wrong in the worst possible way - Sod's law.

Finely chopped cabbage in mayonnaise - Coleslaw.

Work expands to fill the time available for its completion -

Parkinson's law.

It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take
Hofstadter's Law into account - Hofstadter's Law.

50% of the work in a project is done by the square root of the

number of people on the project - Price's Law.

If there is a 50% chance of something going wrong then 9 times out

of 10 it will.

A two year project will take three years, a three year project will
never finish - (anyone know who's law this is?)

Murphy, O'Malley, Sod, Parkinson, Hofstadter, Price and Cole are

alive and well - and working on your project.

Quotations
"We trained hard...but it seemed that every time we were beginning
to form up into teams we would be reorganized...I was to learn later
in life that we meet any new situation by reorganizing, and a
wonderful method it can be for creating the illusion of progress while
producing confusion, inefficiency and demoralisation."

Often attributed to Petronius Arbiter (c.27BC-66AD) but actually

written by Charlton Ogburn Jr. in 1957.

"I love deadlines. I love the whooshing noise they make as they go
by."

Douglas Adams, more recently.

"I don't know the key to success but the key to failure is trying to
please everybody."

Bill Cosby

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."

George Santayana (1863-1952)

"Nothing will ever be attempted if all possible objections must first

be overcome."

Samuel Johnson, 1759

You are doing your daily reports, you weekly reports, your monthly reports, your
budget analysis reports, your resource scheduling reports, your risks and issues
reports, and probably someone wants a fully customised, state of the moment report
in a specific layout and colour scheme, for just one meeting (albeit an exceptionally
important one of course).

Oh, and don’t forget to post a project ‘news’ bulletin on social media