Inspiration for Digital PMs

I was just pulling together a bunch of new posts for Every Day DPM, and I started to realize that so many project management related articles are about the hard facts: scope, budget, black and white, this or that. I started to think back to my very first blog post about how we're not robots. Unfortunately, that point of view hasn't changed much in the greater PM community. Though, I like to think it has shifted (even just a little) in the Digital PM Community.

Down with the box checkers!

So where do we go? How do we, as a community of people who want to push this profession forward, inspire others to do more than write plans and check boxes when something is done? My first thought was, "Well we just tell them what to do." After all, some people just need to be told. Give some gentle direction to someone who wants to be good, and they'll head down the right path, right? Right! But how do you give that direction if you don't actually work with them? Good question. My response? You feed them bits and pieces of inspiration to make them feel better and do better.

So this is where I started:

Just a few simple words to communicate what a Good PM can or should do. It's open-ended and should get you thinking. How can you throw caution to the wind by dropping your scope and inspire your team to innovate? What does that mean for you as a digital project manager?

What inspires you?

This single line won't resonate for everyone. I'll come up with more (already have). I'm having fun with it and want to do more to inspire folks (non-PMs too, I might add) in more ways that with long-form articles (that many do not read).

So what do you think? Is this a good direction? Is this the type of thing that would inspire you, or stick with you? If not, then what would (if you're open to that kind of thing, of course)? I'd love to hear from you on this idea.