Personal Need for PRM

The 1980s and 90s saw the widespread deployment of ERP systems in the Enterprise. The recent ten plus years have seen increasing deployment of "relationship management" applications including Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and Supplier Relationship Management (SRM).
Study: CRM, SRM Key to Operational Excellence.

This decade has also seen "life cycle management" applications including Product Life cycle Management (PLM), Asset Life cycle Management (ALM), Technology Life cycle Management, and Software Life cycle Management.

What this author sorely needs is Personal Relationships Management, or PRM. Since success depends on managing relationships throughout their life cycles, and everything is 'personal' managing personal relationships is critical to the success of the individual and of the enterprise.

I will elaborate on this fascinating topic in a future blog, along with a model for Friendship Life cycle Management.

In the meantime, the curious reader will be well rewarded by reading a thoughtful and entertaining article, "The ex factor," by Ms. Susie Boyt in the Financial Times. It examines reunions between ex-partners and reunions between ex-friends.

My data points suggest that the 'dramatic' fall-outs between friends happen when one person hurts another person's core, and what makes it dramatic is that one does not expect it to come from good friends and is blind-sided. In my case, when any one of my friends puts me in a situation where I have to blink at my personal ethics and support his or her actions, that usually results in an ugly fall-out.

Over time, I have realized that even my ex friends had attributes I liked enough to have them as my friends once upon a time. So I am much more forgiving now, and when I run into one of them I get over the initial awkwardness and try to create a new friendship.

A more interesting situation involves people who start out by being friends, but after romance enters and leaves the picture, the friendships become very awkward.