About Me

I never quite got around to going to college.  By the time I finished High School, I desperately needed a break and so I plunged into the workforce.  Over 20 years later, I'm a grizzled veteran of the workaday world, albeit one without a degree.

I don't think that I appreciate enough how lucky I am to have made it to where I am in my career without that education.  I used to poke fun at it by putting that I was a graduate of the School of Hard Knocks on LinkedIn and my resume, but people either didn't get the joke or followed up with, "no, really.  Where'd you go to school?"

My resulting career has been quite the journey.  I've worked as a Manager at Blockbuster Music, a Help Desk tech, Program Manager, Customer Service Manager, Channel Operations Director, IT Director, Shared Services Director, QA Director, and Project Manager Director, to name a few.  I've worked mostly for smaller organizations that were successful enough to be acquired; indeed, in one case, I went through four different acquisitions with the same company.  That process can be thrilling, but also draining as you're always finding yourself on the edge of unemployment (I get that that particular condition is not unique to the recently acquired, but it is certainly a mitigating factor).

So a couple of years ago I sat down to try to help myself.  I could go the college route, get that degree that I've lacked for so long, or I could go the certification route and get where I felt I needed to be as well.  I opted eventually for the latter approach, but the next question was what cert to go after?

I ultimately landed on a PMP- Project Management Professional- as I felt that my background was quite complimentary to the profession.  I had no idea how right I was.  One of the myriad of benefits of working for smaller companies is that you get to wear a number of different hats and the one that I wore most often was that of a Project Manager.  I subsequently earned my PMP in early 2013 and have sandwiched that with a LSS Yellow Belt and an ITIL Foundations certification. 

Today I work as a Project Management consultant, which is in a word Awesome. 

All of this has led me to become more introspective and reflective upon my career and experiences.  I've always felt that I am a teaching Manager, and I've had the opportunity to train new Project Managers as well as general Managers throughout my career.  It has been quite a rewarding experience and its something that I look to continue- whether its with people I have worked with in the past, my current and future clients, or the Project Management community at large. 

This blog is my way of sharing my experiences with a wider audience, of interacting with the PM community, of injecting a bit of contrarianism into said community from time to time, and of (hopefully) giving people, whether they ultimately agree with my thoughts or not  something to chew on and either give them new points of view or a validation of their own.

So why Wit, Wisdom, and WAGs?

1.  I approach everything I do with a bit of levity and not a small amount of sarcasm (even if I end up having to internalize it sometimes).  It keeps me sane, and it keeps the mood light, which can be essential.  While not every post will have a dose of Wit in it, you'll find that there's a ribbon throughout.

2. After 20 years of bumps and bruises from navigating the working world, I have actually learned a couple of things. 

3. When all else fails, sometimes you just have to go with your gut.

Thank you for reading, and I hope that you enjoy my blog.  I look forward to your comments and contributions.

-Chris Fowler, July 2014