Comments on: The Fourth Great Lie

By: The Nimble PM » The 4th Great Lie (continued)

The Nimble PM » The 4th Great Lie (continued) — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 00:32:35 +0000

[...] my last post I discussed two perspectives that will lead to better project results. In this posting I’ll be [...]

By: The 4th Great Lie (Continued)

The 4th Great Lie (Continued) — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 14:06:29 +0000

[...] The Fourth Great Lie Saying Thank You [...]

By: Donna Fitzgerald

Donna Fitzgerald — Mon, 11 May 2009 21:32:41 +0000

Bill,

What caught my eye in your response was the statement “when faced with problems and issues not covered by the rules.”

There are two responses to situations not covered by the rules. Make more rules and be creative. As we know, the PM organizations in the US and in the UK have both taken the approach of making more rules. In some ways their logic makes sense. If the real work involved in project management is in the messy 20% of projects then a good method should probably help you manage during the times when things get difficult. The problem is that the messy 20% is really messy and very unique. To John’s comment about the repeatability of projects (http://stasysinc.com/?p=29 ) when you can’t follow the happy path (which is linear and straightforward) you end up with enough branching possibilities to make a quantum physicist happy. In my next post I’m going to be covering this as the third key element, which is finally acknowledging that the 20% needs to be handled by its own rules.

Donna

By: Bill Duncan

Bill Duncan — Mon, 11 May 2009 21:05:57 +0000

I agree with your objections to your premise as the premise was stated. However, I think there is another, more powerful rationale for methodologies:
“The likelihood of major disasters will be reduced if we force our project managers to stop every so often and fill out some forms. Filling out the forms requires some minimal amount of thought, and that is better than no thinking at all.”
In my experience, methodologies are there for the guidance of the neophytes and for control of the experienced PMs who have refused to learn. One of my clients once documented the following as a key competency for their project managers:
“Follows the rules except when it is necessary not to.”
Warren Bennis makes essentially the same point in “Managing People is Like Herding Cats.” We want people to follow the rules, but we also want them to be creative when faced with problems and issues not covered by the rules.

Duncan

By: Donna Fitzgerald

Donna Fitzgerald — Mon, 11 May 2009 19:42:00 +0000

Thanks for linking back. I’m always delighted to see where my line of thinking leads others. You correctly focused on what Gerald Nadler (author of Breakthrough Thinking: The Seven Principles of Creative Problem Solving) calls the uniqueness principle. There is a certain non-repeatability quotient attached to all projects. Understanding this non-repeatability and in fact capitalizing on it is what separates good PMs from great PMs. You also indirectly touched on why communities of practice are so important. It seems that we never think to question why A and not B when alternative A is presented to us as a best practice from a PMO. BUT if we’re sitting across a table from someone telling us a story about how they were successful with a project by choosing A, we might ask them why they didn’t chose B. As you pointed out the true value in knowledge sharing is in knowing why A or B made sense in that specific case rather than in just knowing that A worked.

By: IT For The Small Business

IT For The Small Business — Mon, 11 May 2009 19:21:17 +0000

[...] http://blogs.gartner.com/donna_fitzgerald/2009/05/11/the-fourth-great-lie/ [...]