“This is going to take WAY longer than I thought!”

How many times have you said this in the past week? The past month? The past year?

Why’s it so hard to estimate how long a task will take? How many people it’ll take? Whether you’re able to add it to your to-do’s?

Almost every project runs over deadline. Why does this happen despite everyone’s best efforts? What’s going on? Should we just shrug our shoulders and accept “that’s just the world of modern work”?

I don’t think so. Not at all.

You can plan for the curve-balls that come your way when managing a project. It’s possible to develop a sense of intuition about whether a project is about to be delayed or how to solve problems as they arise. Even better than that, it’s possible to plan projects that head off many of the setbacks that others consider to be an unfathomable, inevitable occurrence.

Whether you’re managing a project, or are part of one, there are fundamental principles at play. Once you learn about them, you’ll spot them happening all around you. I’ll bet that if you check your inbox right now – there’s at least one message that’s about to affect the Lead Time, Critical Path, Effort, Overhead or Capacity of the projects you’re juggling. And Data Analysts end up having to do a lot of juggling.

Just like you need to learn fundamental concepts in maths or physics to extrapolate solutions to more complex problems, so too will learning about the fundamental concepts of project management help you for the rest of your career. Frankly, as astonishing as it is that we send high schoolers out into the world without any knowledge of how taxes work, bills, credit or managing a household budget, neither do most Data Analysts get ANY training on how to manage projects. None at all. That’s really unfortunate given how central data is becoming to many organizations’ current and future operating models, with data analysts needing the skills to manage projects of growing scope and complexity.

Learning is a lifelong exercise, but I don’t think many Project Management resources lend themselves as a good introduction to the topic. Courses are quite long, the material a bit dry or they have a lot of advanced stuff packaged up with the basics to justify high price tags.

In Project Management Fundamentals for Data Analysts, I’ve boiled the concepts down to the bare essentials which can be read in under 20 minutes – you can certainly fit that into your crazy schedule!

Even if you wish to never read another word on the topic, these concepts can be used to great effect on their own. It’ll also provide a solid foundation if you want to dive deeper into more formal courses or sophisticated theory.

"这将比我想象的要长得多！"

在过去的一周里，你说过多少次这样的话？过去一个月？过去的一年？

为什么估计一项任务要花多长时间这么难？要花多少人？你是否能把它加入你的待办事项中？

几乎每个项目都会超过期限。为什么这种情况会发生，尽管大家都很努力？发生了什么事？我们是否应该耸耸肩，接受 "这就是现代工作的世界"？

我不这么认为。一点也不。

在管理一个项目时，你可以为你所遇到的曲线球做计划。你有可能培养出一种直觉，知道一个项目是否会被推迟，或者在问题出现时如何解决。比这更好的是，你有可能在计划项目时避免许多别人认为是深不可测、不可避免的挫折。

无论你是在管理一个项目，还是作为项目的一部分，都有一些基本的原则在发挥作用。一旦你了解了这些原则，你就会发现它们在你周围发生。我敢打赌，如果你现在查看你的收件箱，至少有一条信息会影响到你正在处理的项目的前置时间、关键路径、工作、开销或能力。而数据分析师最终不得不做大量的杂耍工作。

就像你需要学习数学或物理学的基本概念来推断更复杂问题的解决方案一样，学习项目管理的基本概念也会对你的职业生涯产生帮助。坦率地说，就像我们把高中生送到外面的世界，却不知道税收如何运作、账单、信贷或管理家庭预算一样令人惊讶，大多数数据分析师也没有得到任何关于如何管理项目的培训。根本就没有。这真的很不幸，因为数据正在成为许多组织当前和未来运营模式的核心，数据分析师需要技能来管理范围和复杂性不断增加的项目。

学习是一项终身的工作，但我不认为许多项目管理资源可以作为该主题的良好介绍。课程相当长，材料有点枯燥，或者他们有很多高级的东西与基础知识打包在一起，以证明高价标签的合理性。

在《数据分析师的项目管理基础》中，我将这些概念归纳为最基本的内容，可以在20分钟内读完--你当然可以将其纳入你疯狂的日程安排中

即使你希望不再阅读关于这个主题的其他文字，这些概念也可以单独使用，产生巨大的效果。如果你想深入研究更多的正式课程或复杂的理论，它也将提供一个坚实的基础。