Reader question: What does it mean when they say "he's a work in progress"?
My comments:
It means that he's not a finished product – in other words, he's got room for improvement.
The phrase "work in progress" originally refers to a piece of unfinished artwork. When a painter shows an unfinished painting to people, he may call it "a work in process". Or when, for example, you go to see rehearsals of a theatre play, the director may call the play "a work in progress".
When James Joyce published the first installments of Finnegan's Wake, he put them under the title Work in Progress.
When businesspeople speak of "a work in progress", they are talking about a project in process – they've got the money from investors to kick start the project, the project is progressing but there's still a ways to go before investors get their money back – and hopefully with a profit.
When referring to a person, "work in progress" points to similar qualities that person has. Yi Jianlian the basketball player, for example, was variously referred to as a "prospect" (before he joined the NBA), a "project" (someone worth spending time and money on), and nowadays "a work in progress" with the New Jersey Nets.
As "a work in progress", Yi has been making good progress, or as good a progress as can be expected from such a young person. But in many ways he has to still improve before he can hold his own and become a force to be reckoned with in America – he's got to muscle-up, for starters. In other words, he has an enormous upside (potential) but he's far from being a finished product.
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