How to WORDLE like a Project Manager
My actual WORDLE report from today
Project Management is useful for so many things in life. Planning projects, planning weddings (more to come on that in a future blog post), and it turns out, playing WORDLE. While I suspect most of the WORDLE craze that gripped our house-bound pandemic selves has ebbed, I realized lately that my background as a project manager has actually made me a fairly decent WORDLE player. So, I figured I would share my strategy with you all today, in case anyone out there still loves playing WORDLE as much as I do and would appreciate a new take on the game.
Strategy #1: Consistency is Key
One of the topics I teach about in PMP preparation courses is conflict, and how consistency or certainty can help control or minimize conflict in our brains. Ordinarily, I link that back to being very consistent in your project management behaviors- things like having standard agendas for status meetings, always sending out notes within a certain time frame after meetings, etc., but I also find this serves me exceedingly well in WORDLE.
Fun fact: Vice President Kamala Harris and I use the same starter word for WORDLE each day: pearl. I like it because I get E & A in my first guess (see next tips), and I also like it because I know exactly how to start each day. I know there’s a huge debate out there about which starter words are the best, and though I’ve done no particularly scientific research about mine, I’ve got a 98% win rate, so I have no complaints.
Strategy #2: Hope is Not a Plan
The first time I heard this quote, it was from a nun who was running a Catholic health system’s electronic record implementation. I think her name was something like Sister Judith Ann, but I’ll have to rely on my former Epic colleagues to fully remind of her name. Anyway, her point is a good one- we can’t just hope for a successful project. Success is many ways boils down to planning- identifying risks, planning to handle them before they arise, implementing those plans when they do, and of course, relying on constant vigilance throughout the project.
So, it should come as no surprise to you that I have a few backup plans when it comes to WORDLE. I always start with “pearl,” but occasionally, that yields me a row of complete blanks… So, I have a backup word for when that happens, “sound.” I also have backup words for what happens when:
I have an “e,” but it’s in the wrong position
I have “e” and “a,” but they’re both in the wrong position
The “e” is in the wrong position, but the “a” is in the correct position
How did I come up with these plans? Nothing special really, they just started lining up after playing for a long period of time. It’s one of the benefits from always starting with the same word - I can start making contingency plans, seeing what works best, and repeating the good guesses time and time again.
Strategy #3: Prioritization is Key
One of the most indomitable project managers I have ever met used to tell me regularly, “Molly, we can’t boil the ocean.” What she meant by that, of course, was that we needed to prioritize our issues, projects and initiatives as a company in order to accomplish our goals. Another take on this is the old adage, “If everything is important, nothing is.”
How does this apply to WORDLE? Well, most of my strategy boils down to stealing a page from the other word game that I’ve loved for much longer than WORDLE: “Wheel of Fortune.” OK, so it’s not a game per se, but it’s a game show, and I have always loved it. More importantly, I learned from Wheel of Fortune that the most common letters in the English language are: R, S, T, L, N, E… And after that, it’s C, D, M, A. Did I watch a lot of TV growing up? Yep. Is it paying off now? Heck yeah!
So, all of that is to say, I use this information about the most common letters to inform and prioritize my guesses. After “pearl,” if I have one or two letters correct, then I try to make sure I cover R, S, T and/or N in my next guess, followed by C, D, and/or M in my next guess.
Furthermore, if we think about the alphabet, two natural groupings come to mind- consonants and vowels. So, in addition to prioritizing the common letters (most of which are consonants), I also emphasize eliminating vowels as early as possible… With any luck, I can guess all (5) vowels in my first three turns, which almost guarantees success in solving the puzzle by the end of my sixth turn.
Strategy #4: Don’t Mess with What Works
I’ve spent 18 years managing projects. I’ve used countless project management software applications- Microsoft Project, Microsoft Project Server, Asana, Changepoint, SalesForce, Azure DevOps and more. But, at the end of the day, you know what my favorite project planning tool is? Excel. It’s not fancy. It can’t do super cool resource management stuff. There are some real limitations, but it’s easy, it keeps me organized, and it has helped me coach countless clients into project management success. Sometimes I find myself wondering if I should switch to a newer, shinier system, but inevitably, I always wind up using what works best for me.
And, the same holds true for WORDLE. I’ve been using these strategies for at least a year and a half (longer, perhaps?), and they keep working. I keep wondering when I’ll get bored or want to try a new word, but so far, it hasn’t happened… So, I’ve decided to stick with the tried and true methods for now, and keep on playing. At the end of the day, it’s all good fun, and I’ll keep playing it until it isn’t.
WHAT DO YOU THINK?
Do you have a WORDLE strategy? Have I missed anything important? Leave a comment with your thoughts and suggestions- I’d love to hear from you!