Project Management and Trading

One of my personal goals is to be a professional trader, which means not just an average, typical trader but someone who can pull the trigger and make a trading decision. In pursuit of this goal, I continually study the publications and life history of many greatest traders of all time, for example, Jesse Livermore, W.D. Gann, H.M. Gartley. I found the principles in trading were quite applicable to project management, one of my professions.

In "The Gartley Trading Method", it says "A humble man knows he will make mistakes, expects them, embraces them, learns from them, and then makes fewer mistakes going forward. An arrogant man thinks he is perfect, takes his losses personally, pretends that the losses didn't happen, doesn't from his mistakes, and is doomed to repeat them." and "... the common theme of the great traders is that at some time they all have blown up or experienced a loss of most of their trading capital. It almost seems like a prerequisite to becoming a legend!"

So, what is the important point there? Review, retrospective, lesson learned, and continuous improvement. They are things in common with what the project management theory advocates; however, I seldom meet a project team (even though I involved) that could do so humbly. Agile frameworks emphasize these things explicitly and try to infuse them to teams' habit implicitly.

Be frank and courageous to admit mistakes, and you will be a legend someday, just similar to being a professional trader.