That doesn't mean I don't get curve balls thrown at me every so often - we all do. I recently found out that our newest child - our 12-week-old son - has a health concern we weren't expecting. Our two year old so has had significant health concerns since birth so I'd be lying if I said we weren't used to it. But, still it was very unexpected and something we now must think about and work proactively to treat and hopefully mitigate.
And, just like experienced parents who have had children with special needs and conditions that need treatment and additional attention, project managers also must be able to adjust to issues and be ready to act and react when situations arise that were something different than what we were expecting. If I’ve learned anything in the past 20+ years of managing projects it’s this – no two projects are the same except that none go entirely smoothly, none make it through without issues, every project’s online project management software schedule looks much different over time than the one you first drafted when you were assigned the project, and all…even the “simple” short terms ones…present challenges. That’s why we must go into each project engagement basically expecting the unexpected.