Variation is an Enemy Enabler of Project Success
September 11th, 2003 by Hal
Article Series - Variation Is an Enabler
- Variation is an
EnemyEnabler of Project Success - Projects, Like Sailboats Are Rarely on Course
- Projects Are People-Centered
Consider this a starting point in a series of postings. At this moment I'm just rambling. I'll use following postings to develop my thinking.
My basic claim about the environment of projects has not changed. Projects are conducted in an uncertain and unknowable future. In addition, project participants learn, collaborate, innovate, and cope with each other and the circumstances as presented. These attributes are what make projects so exciting.
Project work has a progressive or cumulative nature to it. One thing builds on another. One person's work waits on the completion of other work. While some conditions for project tasks are made explicit, there is often plenty of room for alternative courses of action and variety of finished characteristics.
Projects are manifestations of the people who make up the project team. Team members bring their skills, talents, worries, prejudices, ambitions, distractions, moods, intentions, and on and on. This completely unpredictable medley also changes throughout the project. And it doesn't stop there. The friends and families of project team members influence the project circumstances in even less visible ways.
How could anyone, let alone I, say that variation is an enemy of project success? As I described the setting of projects the only thing that one can be confident about is variation and uncertainty. Our usual interpretation is variation = risk. Risk is to be removed.
In prior postings I urged people to reduce the variability in the linkages of one person's work to others' work by engaging in commitment conversations (requests and promises) that increase the reliability that work will start as re-planned. Notice the 're' in re-planned. I am placing an emphasis on an ongoing practice of planning among a broad group of project participants. Still the distinction is not quite right. Planning as action — as a particular kind of conversation — is understood to be separate from the actions of execution. And that is not what I mean. In the course of completing tasks there continues to be an opportunity for planning and adjusting.
So I sit here stuck. The essence of the situation of projects is the unforeseeable possibilities and challenges. So if project settings are foresee ably unforeseen, then let's start managing projects taking advantage of serendipity rather than forcing an outcome. How? Good question!
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