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!

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.

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?

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.