Here's that link to Business 2.0's The Books That Matter. I can't tell if my subscriber cookie is letting me view the list or if it is generally available so I've captured the list for you without all the commentary.

You might be able to email the whole article to yourself. Try visiting http://www.business2.com/articles/email/1,1681,51906,00.html. If you still can't get the article, then you'll have to buy the magazine or subscribe. It's a bargain at $7.49 annually.

posted by Hal at 9:52 AM | link  |   |   | Google It!  | Email This  |

John Reh, management guide at about.com described management as The Music Paradigm in his blog. He was curious what I thought. Also see What is the Music Paradigm created by Roger Nierenberg, Music Director of the Stamford Symphony Orchestra in Fairfield County, Connecticut. I read the referenced work. Here's my reply:

Dear John,

Many people have used the music paradigm for management (and leadership). There's something about it that strikes me as being off. First, there are no conductors in business. Sure, there are strong managers who impose their intentions or will on the organization, but in a moment-to-moment basis no ONE person is conducting. The other thing has to do with the score. Orchestras play to a score. Some might say that is like a game plan. But all experienced managers know that the plan is good for the first play (sometimes), then it's all about improvisation.

Let me contrast that with what I'm noticing about consistently high-performing companies. Management attends to the systems and practices for coordinating action. They set standards and protocols for how people work one with the other, what is expected of each other when in commitment conversations, and how people will provide assessments about how business is doing. Systems, processes, and practices are managed, not people. The second issue has to do with planning. Planning is never a script or a score. Planning can take many forms. Good planning like sailing anticipates that people will never be 'on course', they will be making adjustments (tacking) to return to course. That takes two things: knowing what is intended and sharing the responsibility for assessing and acting to make the adjustments.

While the music paradigm is seductive, like all metaphors much more is hidden about the nature of that being described than is revealed.

Hal

No sooner had I sent the message to John than I remembered reading a paper on project management as improvisational jazz. After rereading the paper, I'm thinking project management is like performing music, just not like orchestral music.

The people at Project Jazz, LLC offer a different view in their article Playing the Live Jazz of Project Management, by Kim Wikström and Alf Rehn, Åbo Akademi University, Turku, Finland. I am offering the following quotes not to present their case, but to give you a flavor of their writing. My elaborations are in parenthesis.

(P)lanning projects is at best an act of guidance, as all aspects of the actual project work never can be completely mapped.

Standards (music) can be played straight up, but the best performances always consist of improvisation on a head (lead melody). To play a standard straight would be pointless because it is non-productive. The structure that the sheet music embodies is not even thought of as something to be followed, but as something to act with.

The historicity (embodiment of prior work) is constantly present even in the freest, most radical of pieces. This shows that the unconventional use of structure has not created fragmented or ignorant upshots, but rather freed these upshots to create better things from the same structure.

(T)hat ability to improvise should not be treated as non-conformity, but as a way to utilize what has earlier been best practice. We are quick to assume that knowledge and skills are technological concepts, where being able to use the given tools or methods in the best possible manner are seen as constitutive (central to its nature).

What is a recurring theme in this text is the observation that a performance is not born at the moment the first note is played, but neither is it wholly unplanned. The unalterable intermingling of planned action with instinctive reaction that occurs in both improvisational jazz and project work is an important starting point to map the nature of project management.

Greg Howell offered these comments:

Jazz is even more mutual adjustment (than orchestral music) and often internally both very competitive and cooperative. There is something about how the performance matters more than the piece ends. On a project we attend to the end and find little value in the actual performance.

Kim Wikström and Alf Rehn offer these parallels between improvisational jazz and project management in the order they say is important. I'll not comment on these individually. Collectively, the five 'linkages' express the essence of agile and lean approaches to project delivery.

1. Plans are enabling, not constricting.
2. Aberrations are normal.
3. You work with what happens.
4. Order is emergent, not pre-defined.
5. Disorder is not chaotic.

(W)e argue...projects also are an imperfect art. They are not similar to regular industry in the sense that they should be optimized and that there would be a perfect way to implement one. While one cannot disregard that set goals should be attained, one must also recognize that new goals are created during the project, and a good project can have unexpected results that fall outside the master plan entirely.

The management of projects also seems to be a less straight forward activity than is usually assumed in the literature on projects. This management is less a following of a plan, and more the handling of continuous action, some ordered, some not.

I hope I haven't taken away the thunder of the authors' paper. Do read it. They have made an important contribution to the conversation of project management.

posted by Hal at 11:23 PM | link  |   |   | Google It!  | Email This  |

Back in the spring George Sifri wrote a series for Builder.com on Project Recovery. I could only find the first three parts [1], [2], [3] of the planned four-part series on derailed projects. I know it has been 4 months since Sifri published these articles. [I'm a little late working through my file on articles to write about. Oh, well.] The series is worth reading through. Sifri offers a conventional view of what happens and what to do about it.

I have a different view. My less than scientific analysis leads me to conclude that most poor performing projects never were on the rails. There are three issues I see repeatedly:

1. The project is conceived and planned by people who are not in the role of doing the work on a day-to-day basis. Plans are out of touch with the challenges of the project.
2. The plan is developed at a level of detail that can be planned but not the level appropriate for the time. The issues that need to be explored are left to later, yet the overall time line stays the same.
3. People are never brought together as a team all committed to produce the intended results. The project is just a collection of people, many who have more than one priority at any given time.

I encourage you to add your favorite reason for not being on the rails. There's no guaranteeing that doing what I say needs to be done will ensure a successful project. In fact, I'd say that having a successful project is a crap shoot. Putting two successful projects together back-to-back just doesn't happen.

I'm really not a pessimist. [Is that howling I hear?] I'm a guy who has come to expect the vast majority of projects are being started poorly and then attempts are made to adjust reality to the plan in place. Do I think a linguistic action approach would help? Sure. How about the last planner system™? That too will help. But I don't think either is enough to ensure two back-to-back projects will succeed. Projects need great leaders who put the people before the plan. Great leadership can compensate for poorly conceived projects. But great project plans don't stand a chance on a project without leadership.

posted by Hal at 8:02 PM | link  |   |   | Google It!  | Email This  |

Starting with next week's issue I'll be contributing to The Zweig Letter the second week of each month. The Zweig Letter is the premier advisory newsletter for the AE industry.

So why was I invited to write? [I keep asking myself the same question!] It seems Mark Zweig likes my edgy writing. As Nana always said, "Be careful what you ask for; you just might get it." I'll republish my articles 30 days later alongside the weblog. In the meantime, check out a sample issue.

posted by Hal at 11:58 PM | link  |   |   | Google It!  | Email This  |

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