“Project results will improve because there is an agreed methodology to be followed that helps repeat earlier successes from similar projects”
This is one of the most common misconceptions in the PM space. One of the reasons it’s so seductive to believe in it is that it sounds like it should be true. After all if we can just figure out what experienced people did to succeed and then ask less experienced people to do the same thing everything will be great. Won’t it? Nope. It doesn’t work like that. It never has and it never will as long as we’re talking about human beings. So let’s take this statement apart and see if we can improve it.
1) Project results will improve if the team has time to think and then takes action based on the reflective process.
Believe it or not this is where a single agreed upon method comes in very handy. The role of a method is to make the low value tasks easier to perform. Formatting a status report is a low value task. In fact in about 90% of the cases formating anything routine is a low value task. A single method can help by offering standard formats. For new PMs having a cheat sheet is very good and a method fufllls that function. The method can’t necessarily give them more experience or improve the quality of their thinking but it will keep them from wasting significant time reinventing the wheel. A method also eases some of the burden on the organization with regard to exercising control.
2) Project results will improve if PMs take the appropriate action at the appropriate time
This is the real goal behind the method compliance programs. The assumption is that the brain will engage when thought is required to fill out the form. As much as it pains me to admit it this simply isn’t true. I won’t bore everyone with stories as to the number of times I’ve seen even smart capable people but down something that they think will be acceptable to the PMO without EVER thinking about how it pertains to their project. I also know the truth is that in all the years I’ve been running successful projects and programs I’m the queen of papework light and I personally would drive any process centric PMO head into fits.
Of course the fact that I admit I’m paperwork impaired borders of the fifth great lie. As Bill Duncan, Mr. father of the 1996 version of the PMBOK Guide likes to remind me, I may not publish 90% of the work I do BUT I do it consistently and conscientously and therein lies the answer. The PROCESS, which essentially says, we’ve found that it makes sense to think about these things at this point in the standard project is absolutely right. Can’t hurt and can only help. The problem is that for the sake of control someone asks you to prove you actually thought about it by filling out a form, which leads to either annoyance or to what I normally see which is artifical compliance by way of form over substance.
3) Projects results will improve as long as the project team is equipped to handle anything that might block their progress toward completion.
Not sure I’ve got that statement worded correctly but I’m going to let it stand for a moment. Essentially this is another area where there is a desperate hope that heavy upfront planning will eliminate obstacles. This is a “Yes… But…” situation. I am going to contend that it is impossible to know exactly how a project will unfold and that no one can guarrantee that things will go exactly as planned. I’m also going to contend that this is a law of nature and not just a law of project management.
If you don’t agree with the statement above feel free to stop reading. Essentially my contention is that this “fact” is the dividing line between a nimble or agile approach to project and program management and a more conventional approach. Essentially nimble pm (you pick the p) says that you create an area of order (because as we all know things are sensitively dependent on initial conditions) so instead of PLANNING the emphasis is on DOING up front in order to create a situation under which the project or program has the highest possiblity of success.
I’ll be exploring more about this concept of area of order in later entries. For now I’ll just say that while I was in Asia-Pac I had a delightful conversation with an organization we would categorize as a true PPM maturity level four and I was obviously delighted to the same emphasis on practice and action coming from them as from me.