TWO HUNDRED FIFTY THINGS TO KNOW AT THE START OF A PROJECT

After Michael Sorkin

Hilma af Klint, The Ten Largest, No 7, Adulthood (1907)

1. Why you’re doing this
2. How to give credit where it’s due
3. How to apologise
4. How much money you have
5. The names of your teammates’ children or partners
6. How your body feels when you’re hungry
7. How your body feels when you’re angry
8. When to revisit a conversation
9. Your hopes and fears
10. What skills you bring
11. The closest place to get snacks
12. What you still need to learn
13. A poem off by heart
14. The urgent important matrix
15. Your vision
16. Your priorities for the week
17. Your priorities for the day
18. How your project will be governed
19. Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer
20. What you’ll give up to do it
21. The pronouns of those you’re working with
22. How your body feels when you’re standing in your integrity
23. How to ask for what you need
24. Why people want to work with you
25. Why they don’t
26. The number of a good therapist
27. Emergent Strategy by Adrienne Maree Brown
28. Start Close In by David Whyte
29. What physical exercise works for you
30. A good number of icebreakers
31. How to measure success
32. When to move on
33. The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk
34. Why you’re the right person / people to do this
35. How to listen
36. Where your teammates want to be in 1, 2, 5 years
37. When to take a break
38. How white supremacy culture is showing up
39. What foods disagree with you
40. Your project’s sexual harassment policy
41. Some good management practices
42. Not to wear waistbands that are uncomfortable
43. Seven Brief Lessons on Physics by Carlo Rovelli
44. How the legacy of your childhood still impacts you
45. 20–8–2 ergonomics
46. The number of a good coach
47. BurnOut by Dean Spade
48. How many hours of sleep you need
49. Box breathing
50. Maya Angelou
51. Your favourite song to dance to
52. That you are more than any title
53. Who you will and won’t accept money from
54. When to take a nap
55. What harm your project might cause
56. Standing in the Fire by Larry Dressler
57. To turn off every non-essential phone notification
58. Where the first aid kit is
59. News From Nowhere by William Morris
60. How much technology actually costs
61. How the project’s salaries or day rates compare benchmarked against the sector average
62. What Glassdoor says
63. Loving Kindness meditation
64. What your plans are for the weekend
65. How to celebrate
66. How to say thank you
67. When to say no
68. Where your passwords are kept
69. How to do Nothing by Jenny Odell
70. How to use a VPN
71. How to turn on 2-factor authentication
72. When to get administrative support
73. The Enneagram
74. When religious holidays are
75. What affirmation bias is
76. When to step down
77. The trust equation
78. What will be lost if you don’t do it
79. A handful of reasonably priced event venues in your town
80. A handful of reasonably priced meeting rooms in your town
81. Roughly how much food and drink you need per person
82. 5 Pathways to Effective Decisions
83. Where your headphones are
84. The ‘touch up my appearance’ filter on Zoom, if you like that sort of thing
85. When your next holiday is
86. The Power of Ritual by Casper ter Kuile
87. When to get a work phone
88. How your identity has impacted your life’s trajectory
89. Reinventing Organisations by Frédéric Laloux
90. The names of those coming up after you that might want your mentorship
91. How paid advertising works
92. The Nap Ministry
93. To pay any interns
94. When to call bullshit
95. How to take responsibility
96. Who you’re accountable to
97. POP
98. DARCI
99. How people can support your project
100. Your neighbours
101. Sorrow
102. The Power of Vulnerability by Brené Brown
103. How to cook a meal in less than 20 minutes
104. The Braving Inventory by Dare to Lead
105. Good dental hygiene
106. A good joke
107. Joy
108. How to request a ‘slice’
109. A champion
110. What you don’t know
111. Not to write in caps lock
112. Your subject
113. The StartUp episode on BurnOut
114. Who’s missing from the table
115. Who you will invite to the table
116. Your mantra
117. The current climate change projections
118. Your fears
119. Multiple ways of knowing
120. Who you would be if you achieved your goals
121. Your boundaries
122. How to give a media interview
123. What a Fuck off fund is
124. The need for freaks
125. Who will profit
126. A good playlist
127. What makes you happy
128. The Index Card: Why Personal Finance Doesn’t Have To Be Complicated, Helaine Olen
129. What your close friends are worrying about
130. What your partner/s want/s to talk to you about
131. To set calendar reminders for birthdays and anniversaries
132. Who to call in an emergency
133. The Five whys
134. The Toyota Way
135. How to keep a plant alive
136. The restorative power of moving your body
137. Your go-to karaoke song
138. All About Love: New Visions by bell hooks
139. How many post-it notes is enough post-it notes
140. The Gentrification of the Mind by Sarah Schulman
141. The Tara Brach podcast
142. Your nearest nature walk
143. To carry a reusable tote bag
144. Borderlands by Gloria Anzaldua
145. Nuance
146. Ruby Sales
147. That other sectors are doing interesting things, and often earlier
148. Polyvagal theory
149. How to ask an open-ended question
150. That not everyone is going to like you
151. That you’re going to be misunderstood
152. How much caffeine your body can take
153. When to call it a night
154. Who you can cry to
155. What you need from your partner/s
156. Ivy Ross
157. When your next health check-up is
158. That change is not linear
159. What a ‘yes’ feels like in your body
160. What a ‘no’ feels like
161. The Three Marriages by David Whyte
162. When to give it more time
163. Ursula K. Le Guin’s daily routine
164. The difference between an internal and external deadline
165. The number of a good lawyer
166. Your rights under arrest
167. When you’ve missed the window
168. Your best critics
169. That it’s ok to not be ok
170. How to facilitate a conversation
171. Letters to a Young Poet by Rilke
172. How much alcohol your body can take
173. How much sugar your body can take
174. When to update your funders / investors
175. A Center by Ha Jin
176. What GDPR stands for
177. The importance of good hardware
178. Your favourite TV show to zone out to
179. What you’d do with a large unanticipated capital injection
180. How to read a profit and loss statement
181. The difference between budget and cash flow
182. Wait Without Hope by TS Eliot
183. How you plan to retain your best people
184. How you will make decisions
185. How you’ll know when you’re done
186. The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying-Up by Marie Kondo
187. Who would love to support you
188. How you’ll tell them about it
189. Who you look up to
190. What you still want to learn
191. The praise to criticism ratio
192. The number of a good facilitator
193. How it will impact the local environment
194. How it will impact the local community
195. How it will impact future generations
196. Let Your Life Speak by Parker Palmer
197. Not to be flattered
198. Not to accept all-male, all-white panels
199. Wild Geese by Mary Oliver
200. What ‘professional’ means to you
201. Not to worry about looking professional
202. Whose voices you can amplify
203. How not to be a shill
204. To pay people on time
205. How much you are willing to travel
206. A More or Less Definitive Guide To Showing Up For Friends
207. The gender pay gap of your project
208. The racial pay gap of your project
209. A Blessing For One Who Holds Power by John O’Donohue
210. What task management system you’ll use
211. How to manage your time
212. What gives you pleasure
213. What your project’s values are
214. How you measure your own value
215. How to keep the hoping machine running
216. What and who you are willing to commit to
217. Bread and roses
218. Why UX design is important
219. The importance of a good mattress
220. The benefits of Vitamin D
221. The Emotion Wheel
222. That it’s better to go out again than hire the wrong person
223. When a check and balance becomes bureaucracy
224. That you are not a robot
225. The argument for why your project should not exist
226. Whether you agree
227. Someone who will tell you the truth
228. The truth, as much as you can
229. Love Languages
230. Attachment Theory
231. The Zoom password
232. The sight and smell of fresh flowers
233. Your succession plan
234. What it would mean to decolonise your project
235. What it would mean to decolonise your life
236. The Bridges’ Transition Model
237. How to fix your boiler pressure
238. When you might meet in person
239. What communications channels you will use
240. Where your spare keys are
241. The Art of Gathering by Priya Parker
242. What day your rubbish is collected
243. That there are probably more than 100 billion galaxies in the observable universe
244. Why people give money
245. That meritocracy doesn’t exist
246. That the only constant is change
247. That you have to keep reading
248. How to be a follower
249. Instructions on Not Giving Up by Ada Limon
250. How to gather new ideas…

What would you add? Email me at hanna@wealign.net