Next Up, Embracing Uncertainty
February 9th, 2004 by Hal
The next teleconference with project authors is Feb 19th. Greg Howell and I are hosting authors Phillip G. Clampitt and Robert DeKoch in a 75 minute conversation about their book. And, you're invited. There's no charge for this event. So, sign up now!
Let me tell you a little about the book.
The idea of the book came from some research and a set of papers of the two authors. You can read their precursor paper Embracing Uncertainty: The Executive's Challenge.
I've not met either author. The book reshaped how I think about uncertainty. I used to take the Six Sigma quality approach setting out to drive all variability out of the project. But unlike process, the latent uncertainty in a project is greater than the variability that we can minimize. Phil and Bob provide a framework for thinking about that and for taking action. Their framework helped me make sense of project dependence and variability. Regardless of how much variability we remove from our project, the project is comprised of people who bring their uncertain lives together in a mix that is beyond prediction.
Projects are fundamentally emergent. We can't predict the outcomes with certainty. At best, we can prepare project participants for the uncertainty they will encounter. In that way, we set the project up for success. Please join us in the discussion.
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