 Reforming Project Management |
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Saturday, August 23, 2003
55 Must-Read Books + 2
I'd love to share the Business 2.0 list The Books that Matter, but it won't be published online for another 8 days. The editors listed 55 books for all business people to read. There were a number of surprises (for me). Seize the Day (1956), Saul Bellow& Fire in the Valley (1984), Paul Freilberger and Michael Swaine& and Moby Dick (1851), Herman Melville, are three surprising examples. (You'll have to wait for the rest.) Who am I to take exception to Business 2.0's choices, so let me add two books to the list. The editors didn't include any books on design. For me, business is all about design. We design products, services, environments, projects, systems, and organizations. I can't see how a company can succeed without a proficiency in design. My choice to learn about design is The Timeless Way of Building (1979), Christopher Alexander. The book is part of a trilogy. He claims that design is a social phenomenon that requires a facility with language. Alexander introduces the notion of a pattern language for design. His setting is the design of buildings, but the parallels abound in many areas of design. The second area that the editors missed is what I'll call pragmatics. (I know...here I go again introducing funny words and giving them my own meaning. Bear with me.) To say we live in uncertain times is hackneyed. We can read another story or book about that on almost any day. The truth is we've always lived in uncertain times. We can't know what will happen in just a few moments, let alone tomorrow, next week, next month, or next year. Those of us who thought we were smart with our 401k investments in the '90s hang or heads today. Not only is the future uncertain, but it is unknowable. But we continue to live and manage otherwise. So let's get pragmatic. We can't do anything about the uncertainty and unknowability. So, let's start operating differently. Embracing Uncertainty: The Essence of Leadership (2001), Phillip Clampitt and Robert DeKoch offers a different orientation to being in the present with the uncertainty of the future. Embrace it, they say. How? They propose three steps: cultivate awareness, communicate, and catalyze action. Don't be misled by the simplicity of the actions. The book changed the way I think about the project environment. I'll link to the Business 2.0 list as soon as it's published. Wednesday, August 20, 2003
Project e-Tip of the Week
Inspiration for this week's Project e-Tip came from Jeffrey Cufaude's May 19th weblog posting Are Good Intentions Good Enough? in Jeffrey Cufaude - Idea Architect. His answer was no. So let's do something about it!
Send along your proposals for Project e-Tips. Also, leave a comment to let us know how you are using them. Tuesday, August 19, 2003
Doing My Best Not to Scream
Yesterday's posting hit a nerve. (Seems at least three people agree with me!) What might we be able to accomplish on our projects if we put our attention on learning to increase the relatedness of people on our projects rather than studying for the PMI certification exam? Does anyone really think that doing better work breakdown structures will make our projects successful? No one. That's what I thought. How about learning to repair trust between two important team members? Now that would make a difference. Not the role of a project manager, you say? Then who's role is it? It's time we stopped acting like good technical wisdom is what makes for good project management. It doesn't. Likewise, accountability, authority, and responsibility (someone needs to explain the difference between accountability and responsibility for me) don't make a project manager. Let's try care, guidance, attention, listening, and openness. Now we're getting somewhere! I recognize my mood in writing this is somewhat impertinent. Frankly, I'm doing my best not to scream. (It would wake the dogs.) We must shift our conversation about project management from the things we do to the people we do it with. Only when we put people at the center of projects can we have the fantastic environments that projects are for our clients, for us and our team mates, and our companies. Monday, August 18, 2003
Project Management: A New Definition or a 20 Year-Old Definition?
Project Management: A New Definition, by Mark Mullaly, appearing in Gantthead, July 23, 2003.
Let's start with the definition Mullaly offered: The exercise of responsibility and decision-making about a project, the authority to execute within the boundaries of the project, and the accountability to deliver the results of a project in the context of agreed-upon customer expectations, commitments and constraints. Mullay goes on to say, (M)any with project management responsibility do not in fact realize that they are project managers...and many who believe themselves to be project managers may in fact not be fully exercising the role. We should not be held accountable for results if we do not have the responsibility to make decisions about a project or the authority to attain results. Is this new? and helpful? Hasn't this been said by every management expert on the face of the earth? Is it new to say this to project managers? I don't think so. Nor do I think the definition offers much guidance on how to carry out ones role. How about we try on something all together different. Fernando Flores offered a distinctive notion of management in his PhD dissertation Communication and Management in the Office of the Future, Univ. of California Berkeley, 1982. Management is that process of openness, listening, and eliciting commitments, which includes a concern for the articulation and activation of the network of commitments, primarily produced through promises and requests, allowing for the autonomy of the productive units. While Flores was writing about the office of the future he foresaw that a principle activity was the managing of projects. That notion of management offered in 1982 fits the current day situation of projects. Flores pinpoints three issues in his definition that we continue to struggle against.
I could go on. If I did, then I'd argue that the fascination with process is a bureaucrat's approach that will only bring down the level of performance on projects. I'd go on to mention that we continue to plan our projects to determine an outcome rather than embrace the uncertainty of our world. And I'd finish by attacking our belief that we know our situations rather than acting with the humility of our ever-blindness. But I don't need to do that here. Greg Howell and I did that in our IGLC-11 paper, Linguistic Action: Contributing to the Theory Of Lean Construction. No, I don't need to go on. You see I agree with the Gantthead article. We do need a different definition of project management, just not the (new) one offered. I'll take a 20 year-old one. Visit the Archives for more postings |
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