Project Management and Gaming, is There Something in Common?

I started to think about this topic not so long ago. I am dealing with project management recently and I love the gambling game called preference.

And this is the best quote I’ve heard about gamblers: «The cool gambler is not the one who’s winning when cards are good, but the one who is not loosing when there are no good cards».

Preference  is not quite a gambling game, it trains your intellect, it is some kind of for-profit game, it is entertaining game for leisure-interest. «…But there is no more excitement in this game than in chess. Really venturous people are choosing different ways to get the adrenaline».

So comparing preference with other gambling games I can tell that in preference the result of the game depends more on gamblers skills than on the luck. Of course you can feel the above said more, only after the detailed studying of the game rules and trying it out.         

And how is preference connected to the project management? I wouldn’t understand this a month ago as well.  So let’s check out the common definition:

Project management is the discipline of planning, organizing, securing and managing resources (such as money, labor, time, materials, energy, space etc.) to bring about the successful completion of specific project goals and objectives. The key factor of project management is clear planning, minimization of risks and effective change management.

And I thought about the word «Strategy» as well. That’s the basis of everything that you are doing. And it goes for the gaming as well, where the main thing is not only to win, but to see the clear picture, to analyze your competitors who may become your teammates.  And things that I’ve mentioned can be only effective when dispassionately analyzing the risks.

The skills that you are using in preference and professional skills that you are using in project management are really close when it comes to decision making, forecasting, preplanning and risks analyzing.  The correct combination of these skills and some other factors will definitely lead you to success.

The main goal of my blog post is not only to find a conformity but to show that preference, which is quite forgotten game can easily help you to find your niche in  such a new subject as Project Management, to gain useful skills, to make your brain work, to analyze, to count and of course to spend good time in good company. Me and my blog post are a pretty good example, aren’t we?