Project Management – the lost art

I was reading through an old text

Project Management With Cpm, Pert and Precedence Diagramming (Hardcover) isbn 0442254156

book of mine, just the other day, and two things really struck me, from reading this.

Firstly, that again, here is evidence that the industry (in this case the Project Management pool of “experts”) has lost the plot – there are a broad range of concepts, and approaches here in a 45 year old text, that your average Project Manager of today, wouldn’t even consider let alone understand. I have bemoned this before, and will explore in more detail again, but there is a definite failing in our ability to learn from those who have gone before us, learning from them, more of the “why” than the “how”.

Secondly, one of the specifics that I took from reading this, is that with all of the “Project Management” in this day and age, we haven’t learnt how to apply the core science. This text, touches on the concept that the predicted time to completion of a particular task in a particular project is subject to variation, under standard probabilistic models.

What don’t we see today. Let me insert this into an example. How many companies have done, say a Microsoft “Active Directory” rollout (let alone, how much has Microsoft had the opportunity to thoroughly qualify and quantify the process of doing so).

So why don’t we see a greater collection of “standard” and tested Project Plans for such things.

A project plan is firstly the collection of steps necessary – that’s easy, then the efforts and skills required to complete these, as well as the relationships between all factors.

Surely we should be heading towards the situation whereby say, such a task/project is something that we can pull from a previously defined (and tested) repository of project plans. Part of the definition is the “variance” factors, such as the number of clients (or the size of the house, you are building), and more importantly, out of this comes a feedback mechanism, that a) tracks the conformity to the original “model”, b) documents necessary modifications or improvements to the model, and c) most importantly, validates the original model. Mathematically, if the standard deviation(s) of the factors of all tasks (and the total project) are found to be consistent over 50 or 500 or 5000 samples, then the “quality” of the core model improves…

Is it just me, or isn’t this where the whole Science of Project Management should really have been heading…

How to be the best at what you do…

Well, that would be to be absolutely approachable. Spread the word, spread the knowledge… One of the more successfull business folk in Silly-Con Valley is Guy Kawasaki, who has the balance between geek, and business guru perfected, is open about sharing his insight and wisdom. and now he canvassing the general blog audience for questions for him to answer.

Hey I can do the same, but who's listening to me.

Employment Opener

As a baby boomer. and as someone that has had a diverse spectrum of roles over the years, I have experienced a broad range of situations, and from those, hopefully, can impart some wisdom here.

Where has all of the innovation gone?

Is it just me, or is discrete innovation disappearing? I remember the good old days, when technology companies were able to come up with unique and individual things.

 Someone does a search engine. Everyone else does a search engine. Someone does web-based mail, everyone else does web based mail. The same with hardware… It’s just like Television. Take something good, like star trek, and turn it, into next generation, deeps space nine, voyager, and enterprise.  Or CSI, and turn it into Miami, NY, and NCIS. For goodness sake. The franchise gets overworked.

I fully  understand the need to competitive alternatives, but there has to be a point where one company looks at the product of another, and just says “We can’t beat that, and won’t even try”. Or heanven forbid, our competitors have done a good product. Let’s leave them to it, and actually do a complementary product instead.

Sure, the open systems world has told us that out of it’s auspices, we should be getting all sorts of interoperability, but gee, it’s never quite just where we would expect it to be. Or is that an intentional lock-in from the corporations.

One of my mentors, pointed out that there has been very little “new” in the last 30 years of technology - smaller, faster cheaper, yes, but where is the elusive next pardigm shift.

Well, there goes the game…

Scoble, recently mentioned www.origamiproject.com .

 This to me, looks like the start of another social networking system, like LinkedIN, ryze, orkut et al. After all, it’s the one area that Microsoft hasn’t touched on.

 Unless it’s a stunning worldbeater, it’s a case of “so what” – a little too late.

Do you know me?

Do you know what I can do?

and where I can go? 

or how I can change your life?

- All over a “network” diagram – certainly looks like it all to me…

 

Well, there you go, colour me wrong. It’s a PDA (of sorts) – just what we need another one of those…

 OF more interest to me, in that space are the Digital Ink appliances, the Sony, and the Irex.  Think more like the PADD’s in Star Trek. (those little electronic things that they hand around with everything on them….

 

 

q

 

Once more into the fray….

Well, reknowned I am, for my opinion on many things, and broad range of knowledge, so here is a more serious attempt that previous at a Blog, to capture and disseminate my wisdom… 

End Yoda speak…