"I take project management very seriously; unfortunately my cohorts don’t, or Harry Potter would already be disposed of. For example, the Death Eaters are good at the touchy feely stuff, but really don’t know how to put together a good plan. Draco Malfoy? Don’t even get me started. I told everybody we were going to coordinate via Microsoft Project, and he tells me 3 months into the project he’s never looked at it because they only have one computer and his kid is always on it.

My advice to newcomers to project planning? You have to think a lot about your objectives, because that is what will drive activity and managerial attention. Objectives should be SMART: specific, measureable, assignable, realistic, and time-oriented.

Sorry, gotta go, got a lot on my to-do list today…"