Why Are So Many Projects Tragedies?
January 14th, 2004 by HalLaurent Bossavit answers that question in his posting The Trouble with Projects.
Laurent starts with the question, "Why organize your initiative as a project?" It's a great question. What other ways might we organize? People trained as project managers see their work as projects. Projects are what they do. That there might be an alternative has slid into the background. It get's worse. The training puts a focus on the artifacts of projects rather than the nature.
"Project managers who have trained as such may be familiar with the definitions given in the literature on project management, but these focus on a limited set of operational characteristics (projects are aimed at one-time outcomes, involve a defined start date and expected duration, multiple people from several disciplines, etc.). This is a bit like describing laughter as "rhythmic, vocalized, expiratory and involuntary actions" – somewhat accurate but entirely unenlightening."
Our failure to act based on the nature of a project — the human-ness and the uncertainty of the future — gets us into trouble. Laurent says it better,
"This is what projects are: the power of human invention harnessed to circumvent our tragically limited ability to predict the future."
Projects are the perfect setting for producing human invention. Invention and innovation are social phenomena. Two people are smarter than one, and three are smarter than two. Yet we don't see collaborative behavior calling on the talents and expertise of those available. Instead, we see people acting in narrowly defined roles all by themselves as if they are the only ones on the project.
"What is surprising, then, is not that so many projects fail; what is surprising is that some projects succeed, in the face of so much uncertainty about the future."
We don't have to be surprised at success. It can be our everyday project experience. But first we must embrace the uncertainty of our situations and engage deeply with the people on our projects.
Add Incipient Thoughts to your reading list. Laurent Bossavit was the source for Project e-Tip 19: Creating the Envronment for "Jumpling In". He is an IT guy who reads books by (building) architects. There's gotta be wisdom in that!
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