Project Management and Motorcycling: Ride to Live, Live to Ride

Learning how to be a good motorcyclist has taught me quite a bit about myself, how I learn and how I manage projects. I took on learning something that has a high degree of risk and low tolerance for mistakes, sound familiar? Most of what I've learned has been through mistakes, near misses, or just plain foibles. I think it provides a new perspective to the meaning of project management and project manager and will be exploring project management through that perspective.

About six years ago I decided to take up motorcycling. It wasn't totally out of the blue, I'd always wanted to ride, I just hadn't done it "yet". It was easy to get the ball rolling, $8.00 later I had the booklet and the beginning paperwork. Two weeks later I had a permit and a motorcycle to ride and within a few months had my license.

So began my journey of motorcycle riding. When I started riding I knew I was taking on a risky proposition. Motorcyclists die on a regular basis due to accidents. I knew that I would need to be good at riding, to become proficient at motorcycling. There were a number of things I did to get there, I took a Motorcycle Foundation Safety course to get my license, I subscribed to a number of magazines to become familiar with the mechanics, the different thoughts about motorcycling, and some of the “ins and outs”. I also invested in a few books that provide tools and techniques of how to ride a motorcycle. I think the most important thing I did was to practice riding. I didn’t start out riding on the road but I practiced in a safe place, an empty parking lot. I needed to learn the basics like starting, stopping, turning, and shifting. These basic building blocks are what every driver needs to know how to do, no matter what the vehicle. It just so happens that making a mistake in a car or truck in a parking lot rarely ends in physical injury, not so with a motorcycle.

So why write about motorcycling when this blog is about Project Management? What in the world do these things have in common? I’ve come to learn that there are many correlations between them. I’ve come to believe that it is because these two things, motorcycling and project management, are both surrounded by, influenced by and driven by risk. Each time I get on a motorcycle I have to look at the risk that I’m taking on and each time I manage a project I have to do the very same thing. As I looked at my riding I began to see project management from a different perspective and began to think about how I managing projects.

There is a saying in the motorcycle community, “Ride to Live, Live to Ride”. Riding is a bit contagious. Those who ride usually love it and would rather be riding than almost anything. The rest of the world doesn’t often understand why anyone would take on the risk of riding a motorcycle. Is there a correlation in the project management community? I would argue that there are many project managers who would never choose to do anything except manage projects. They really enjoy project management and want to be proficient at managing projects. I don’t think I’d carry it so far as to say “Project Manage to Live, Live to Project Manage” but who knows?

And so begins the journey, motorcycling and project management. I’ll explore the mechanics, tools, techniques, the nuances and perhaps discover whether or not there is anything in this perspective that might shed some new light on managing projects.

Ride On, Manage On.