It's already the beginning of June, but our boat is still on the shore. We look longingly at our friends whose white sails are moving on the horizon. I spit in my chin, our helmsman curses quietly under his breath. Here we go again! Boat launching began in earnest in April. The flag on the flagpole of our yacht club has been proudly waving in the wind since the first Saturday in May. Even our little ones have already entered the water on their optimists. Why are we once again late with the opening of the sailing season?
"Yes, there's never enough time" - one would like to quote the classic bon mot from the movie "What will you do to me if you catch me?" Stanisław Bareja. Obviously. Work, family. There's still so much going on. But if others can do it, why not us? Where did we go wrong again?
Exactly! It would be worth asking yourself this question in the fall. We met in November to sum up the season. The boat was already in the hangar, the sails and ropes were in the warehouse, the engine was preserved. The end of the season is always a good opportunity to celebrate. Who would remember about evaluation then? … About what?
Evaluation, according to the Dictionary of the Polish Language, means "determining the value of something." We probably discussed the value of the finished season between sips of beer. Bah! With each sip of beer, this value seemed to increase. Somehow we didn't want to look at failures and successes with a critical eye. We didn't discuss their reasons. We have not drawn any conclusions.
And here lies the reason for our defeat at the start of the next season. It's hard to do better if we don't learn from our mistakes. Without a reliable summary of what is behind us and drawing conclusions, we are doomed to repeat the same mistakes over and over again. This is true in every activity, including projects.
W projektach? Dlaczego właściwie w kontekście kolejnego sezonu żeglarskiego pojawia się hasło projekt? Czy to nie jest zbytnio naciągane? Przecież to nasz kolejny sezon przed żaglami. Podobny do wielu poprzednich. Owszem podobny, ale jednak nie taki sam. Każdy sezon jest trochę inny. Zmieniają się nasze plany startów w regatach i rejsów turystycznych. Rosną nasze ambicje i co raz ambitniejsze wyznaczać chcemy sobie cele. Pojawia się zawsze coś nowego. To nowe, niepowtarzalne, unikalne jest również niepewne. Czy nie mając pewności możemy w ogóle kontrolować wydarzenia? Naturalnie, temu właśnie służy project management.
We can therefore treat our sailing season as a project. Limited by time - the boat will have to be put in the hangar in mid-October at the latest. Limited by scope - despite our ambitions, we will not be able to organize more than a dozen regatta starts. It will limit the budget - our wives have already taken care of it 
CSo what is needed for its effective management?
Firstly, drawing conclusions from previous projects - previous seasons. Let's collect experiences. Let's evaluate them. Let's save. Memory is unreliable. We summarize the season in November, we plan the next one in March - after 4 months it will certainly be difficult for us to recreate the details of the previous discussion.
What's next? Division of roles, formulation of goals, detailed planning of time, scope and budget. More on this in the next episodes. In the meantime, I wish you good launching and always a foot of water under the keel!
Author: Maciej Krupa
