Management quotes

Well, everyone else seems to have a list of favourites, so here, in no particular order, are mine...

• Good management systems are like good brakes: they help you go faster.
• The way to secure success is to be more anxious about obtaining than about deserving it. William Hazlitt.
• 99% correct is wrong.
• Some things that don't count are counted, many things that count aren't counted.
• You can't rise unless you set goals that make you stretch.
• The greatest pleasure in life is achieving things that people say can't be done.
• It is not enough to aim. You must hit. Italian proverb.
• 90% of your problems have already happened the moment the ink is dry on teh contract.
• Activity is not achievement.
• Nothing great was achieved without enthusiasm. Ralph Waldo Emerson.
• Who begins too much accomplishes little.
• Quality is free, but it is not a gift. Philip Crosby, quality guru
• The best is the enemy of the good.
• Either dance well or leave the ballroom. Greek proverb.
• At the heart of every large project is a small project trying to get out.
• Good project managers know when not to manage a project.
• Failing to plan is planning to fail.
• An individual without information cannot take responsibility; an individual with information cannot help but take responsibility. Jan Carlzon, CEO SAS Airlines.
• A little risk management saves a lot of fan cleaning.
• Do your duty in all things. You cannot do more. You should never wish to do less. Robert E Lee.
• All successful men are men of purpose. They hold fast to an idea, a project, a plan, and will not let go.
• 'Begin at the beginning', the King said, very gravely, 'and go on till you come to the end: then stop'. Lewis Carroll.
• No plan survives contact with the enemy.
• Plans are nothing; planning is everything. Dwight D. Eisenhower.
• Knowledge is no more to be found in data than a house can be found in a pile of bricks. RJ Robinson.
• A good workman is known by his tools.
• Nothing is impossible for the person who doesn't have to do it.
• You can plan too much, but no one has ever been caught doing it.
• A project without a critical path is like a ship without a rudder.
• In NASA, we never punish error. We only punish the concealment of error.
• You can only elevate individual performance by elevating that of the entire system. W. Edwards Deming, quality guru.
• A badly planned project will take three times longer than expected - a well planned project only twice as long as expected.
• Pareto’s Other Principle: The first 80% of the project will take the first 80% of the budget, and the remaining 20% of the project will take the remaining 80% of the budget. RJ Robinson.
• Project management is like juggling three balls - time, cost and quality. Programme management is like a troupe of circus performers standing in a circle, each juggling-three balls and swapping balls from time to time.
• Of all the things I've done, the most vital is coordinating the talents of those who work for us and pointing them towards a certain goal. Walt Disney.
• Either dance well or leave the ballroom.
• An individual without information cannot take responsibility; an individual with information cannot help but take responsibility.
• Good estimators aren't modest: if it's huge they say so.
• The sooner you begin coding the later you finish.
• A verbal contract isn't worth the paper it's written on. Sam Goldwyn.
• What is not on paper has not been said.
• If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will take you there.
• If you don't attack the risks, the risks will attack you.
• The sooner you get behind schedule, the more time you have to make it up.
• The more you plan the luckier you get.
• A project is one small step for the project sponsor, one giant leap for the project manager.
• Quantitative project management is for predicting cost and schedule overruns well in advance.
• The philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways; the point is to change it. Karl Marx.
• Good project managers know when not to manage a project.
• Metrics are learned men's excuses.
• Good project managers admit mistakes: that's why you so rarely meet a good project manager.
• Fast - cheap - good: you can have any two.
• The more ridiculous the deadline the more money will be wasted trying to meet it.
• The project would not have been started if the truth had been told about the cost and timescale.
• The most successful project managers have perfected the skill of being comfortable being uncomfortable.
• If it wasn't for the 'last minute', nothing would get done.
• Warning: dates in the calendar are closer than you think.
• There is no such thing as scope creep, only scope gallop.
• If project content is allowed to change freely the rate of change will exceed the rate of progress.
• If you can interpret project status data in several different ways, only the most painful interpretation will be correct.
• A project gets a year late one day at a time.
• The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man. George Bernard Shaw.
• When you describe your approach as ‘pragmatic’, do you mean ‘I’m devoid of principle’, ‘I’m completely lacking in insight’, ‘I would settle for second-best’ or ‘I’m making it up as I go along’? RJ Robinson.
• Metrics are learned men's excuses.
• I know that you believe that you understand what you think I said but I am not sure you realise that what you heard is not what I meant.
• It must be considered that there is nothing more difficult to carry out nor more doubtful of success nor more dangerous to handle than to initiate a new order of things. Machiavelli.
• I love deadlines, I especially like the swooshing sound they make as they fly past. Scott Adams (Dilbert).
• Work expands to fill the time available for its completion. Northcote Parkinson.
• Brevity is the soul of wit. Shakespeare (Hamlet).
• Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory. Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat. Sun Tzu.
• Vision without acting is daydreaming, acting without vision is only pastime.
• What you don’t know will hurt you.