Avoiding Breakdowns
September 15th, 2003 by Hal
A few faithful readers have offered some rigorous ways for looking at good and bad variation and uncertainty. (Check out the reader comments from the last two days.) For now, I'm skipping the rigor. Here's the secret:
We avoid breakdowns when we don't make commitments.
No commitment…no interruption…no breakdown. While it's 'easy', it's not at all practical.
Funny thing happened on the way to blogging. I spent some unplanned time searching for the title to my car. I'm selling the car on Tuesday. I didn't plan to search for the title (yes I did find it). That time cut into the time I intended to spend writing. Was it a breakdown? It sure was. For two reasons. First, I need the title to sell the car. I committed to do the sale tomorrow. It would cost me $90 to sell the car without it. Second, I know many readers expect me to write. Not writing would disappoint.
Could I avoid the first commitment? Not if I wanted to sell the car. Agreeing to sell includes presenting the title. What about the second commitment? When I started writing about variation as an enabler of project success I was just thinking I'd explore a topic that I had been confused about. Many people showed interest. Without intending a commitment one resulted.
So, it's not so easy to go about ones work (life) without making commitments. Making commitments allows us to take care of our own concerns. Committing is arises in the course on living responsibly with our interests. Breakdowns therefore are inevitable. Other people and external events interrupt us while we in the midst of going about fulfilling our commitments.
Events happen. While we can shield ourselves (somewhat) from externalities we can't shield ourselves completely. Our challenge then is to act in ways that we can tolerate interruptions without producing big breakdowns. The other issue is people. This is about choice. Some might say that we get the people we get on our projects. Maybe. I say we get what we deserve. When we take care of the people on our projects, they take care of us. This goes as far as when interruptions do occur the team does what is necessary so it doesn't impact the major commitments of the project AND the other commitments that matter (those to family, friends, financial, etc.).
So we can't avoid breakdowns. We can design environments that are breakdown-tolerant.
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September 16th, 2003 at 7:13 am
I read Hal’s blog in the morning. Later in the day, while reading the New Yorker [pp. 94, 9/15/03] Hal’s blog and comments of “et al” converged with Joseph Stiglitz, who, in 1977, wrote of asymmetric information: one party to a transaction knows more than the other party, such as when a buyer taking out a life insurance knows more about his health that the insurance company does. The concept really applies to market theory, but, hey, we borrow freely to create metaphors for understanding and getting to stretch. I thought the concept neatly addresses this issue of breakdowns and variation.
Variations: in the world of [project management, engineering, coaching, art, fill in the industry, field, etc. here] a variation can be the mother of invention. Variation can be the very accident that fosters breakthrough thinking, true creativity when people “play” with work – good variation. The key then is to know a bad idea when you process it out-loud. If you misjudge the variation because you did not have all the information needed [asymmetrical] to inform your thinking – bad variation.
Breakdowns: when one party responsible to critical path knows more than the other party responsible to critical path, for example about resources [or external dependencies, or timing, or schedule, or the nexus of other work requiring the same participants, etc]. The challenge is to get everyone up to “the same speed” versus getting the project up.
We are hired because of our expertise in helping customers accomplish goals, but somehow the seduction of a new exciting project pushes us off course – going asymmetrical. The goal is to get to symmetrical information – a universal awareness where we are fully informed of the customers’ desired outcomes and the customer is informed of the process to achieve the outcome. In symmetrical harmony everyone understands the goals, objectives, partnerships, and relationships needed to achieve a successful project. In symmetrical harmoney, everyone understands that disconnects, breakdowns, variations, are part of the human project process and, as Hal points out, we can embrace them.
By being breakdown and variation tolerant, we just might discover something new in recovery – hence, the Yellow Stickie!
September 16th, 2003 at 1:29 pm
Good systems do have a robustness to them, that handles disruptions. The twin pillars of lean, JIT and autonomation, point to that, especially the second one.
The rub, as you point out well, Hal, is that it is much harder to do in human systems (e.g. project management) than in mechanical systems (e.g. a punch press).
It seems that one need is for maintaining some excess capacity in the system. A TOC Buffer, or just some extra time.
Fascinating topic that has, indeed, grabbed interest.
September 16th, 2003 at 3:13 pm
I think we can and should. Breakdowns as you describe them can also be an opportunity.
When working our way though the critical path we will run into unexpected obstacles. Sometimes these obstacles are detrimental and sometimes they are beneficial to the quality of the project. They may even present unexpected opportunities for innovation.
I think, that as project managers, we should nurture innovation in our project teams. We must be aware of the potential to crush opportunities for innovation by being overly task and process oriented.
But at the same time we must keep the focus of the project team in the direction of completing the project goals. The trick is how do we keep that balance between staying open to unexpected opportunities and moving the project along to meet time and cost objectives?
September 16th, 2003 at 3:27 pm
In my experience most opportunistic breakdowns should not change a particular project’s purpose unless something has been learned that tells us that such a change is sensible.
If an opportunity for innovation presents itself we need to be certain that the innovation is an aid to the project we are actually working on. If not one might consider spawning a new, additional project to take advantage of the opportunity.
I believe this to be a critical distinction.