A New Idea…Can I Face the Pain?

January 1st, 2007 by Hal

Article Series - Notes on Obsolete Project Management Theory

I read the following quote from Walter Bagehot in Time Magazine's end-of-year farewell to John Kenneth Galbraith.

"One of the greatest pains to human nature is the pain of a new idea."

The quote reminds me of the theory-trap we are in with projects. So with this posting I am updating my Notes on the Underlying Theory of Project Management is Obsolete.

While our tools are ever more sophisticated and there is more project management training, our project results languish. The new idea — projects are conducted in an unfolding network of commitments — challenges the very nature of what people do today in the project setting. The PMI is going to great lengths to teach people the old ideas.¹ In essence saying, "Just get good at doing what we've been telling you to do all along and your projects will come out just fine." Following that teaching with certification is producing a world-wide paradigm that is having the affect of blinding practitioners to alternative ideas (theories). In the face of that, the agilists are dealing with the pain of their new ideas; so are those adopting lean construction.

Individuals are rarely to blame for project failures.

While I've written extensively on the Last Planner System® (LPS) and its basis in the language action perspective (LAP), the crux of the new idea is that projects are distinctly human endeavors taking place in unknowable futures. Planning and plan execution are tied directly to both the people who are performing the project and the future that unfolds while they do that. Consequently, the new idea recognizes that plans have a shelf life…often a very short one. President Dwight D. Eisenhower aptly said,

"Plans are nothing, planning is everything."

The language action perspective is both attractive and challenging in the project setting. The idea that we can't determine our future is anathema in our engineering-oriented highly successful society. When something doesn't go as planned we are quick to assign blame to a person or firm. Yet, in my experience, individuals are rarely to blame for project failures. We can thank Lauri Koskela, Ph.D. and Gregory Howell, P.E. for helping us understand how obsolete theory has contributed to the results we get on projects.².

Let planning continue to the last moment when task assignments are promised by project performers.

The Lean Construction community has learned quite a lot since Koskela's and Howell's paper on obsolete theory was first presented. At the latest IGLC-14 conference in Santiago, Chile the LAP was moved to the top of the list of theory that explains how the LPS is transforming the planning and delivery of AEC projects. Four years ago I was not ready to predict that although I was doing my own writing in that area. The work of my firm (Lean Project Consulting) has been based on LAP for over 5 years. Our clients routinely produce far superior results when working from the language action perspective rather than the deterministic reductionist perspective underlying common practice. While there is much more to be said, I'll leave you with these three questions as you consider whether you are ready to face the pain:

In our always uncertain world why exclude what we learn while we go about carrying out our projects?
Why exclude what other project performers learn while they toil with (or for) us on our projects?
How does the reliability of others' commitments affect the reliability of your commitments and the project results?

Make the choice to stop doing what we've been taught to do to make room for more effective practices.

Let planning continue — it does anyway — in a formal way through the time when task assignments are promised by project performers. While the underlying (generally unarticulated) theory is obsolete, a new theory in use –- one that is well-grounded in human experience of committing oneself to a future –- is producing far superior results. The coupling of planning with execution in recurring commitment conversations — negotiating, promising, declaring complete, and re-promising — builds the network of commitments that brings structure to our projects. It is that structure, not the WBS, that also prepares the planner-doers for noticing variation to the plan as they go about fulfilling their promises. The result is a team with the capacity to adjust what they are doing to accomplish the overall promises of the project.

The pain of this new idea of project management is real. There aren't enough project resources to conduct the project the traditional way and adopt the new practices. Frankly, on many AEC projects there aren't even enough people to do the project the way they want to do it. So a choice must be made. It's the choice to do what we've been taught to do and hope for the best or to stop doing many of those things to make room for more effective practices. The companies that made the decision to change faced real pain. And, in just a few months they have also come to enjoy the success that results. It's time to choose.

The PMI is succeeding. Membership has swelled from under 100,000 in 2002 to over 300,000 going into 2007. Attendance at conferences is at an all time high. And a cottage industry including top universities has grown to prepare project managers for the certification, CPM®. [ ⇑ back ]
The Underlying Theory of Project Management Is Obsolete, presented at PMI's 2002 Research Conference. [ ⇑ back ]

Why Don’t We Make the Lean Change?

Story-Telling Prepares for Uncertainty

And I Thought Seth’s Speech Was Good!

Good, Fast, Cheap — Pick Two or Three

Reduce Project Variability…Start Listening

This entry was posted on Monday, January 1st, 2007 at 9:37 pm and is tagged: theory, commentary, Language Action Perspective, lean, Last Planner, PMBoK. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed. Convert this post to a PDF document.

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3 Responses to “A New Idea…Can I Face the Pain?”

Amy Schwab Says:
January 2nd, 2007 at 4:25 pm
Nice posting, Hal. Yes, one of the greatest pains to human nature is the pain of a new idea - or perhaps even more so, the pain of discarding an old, familiar idea.

We all like the certitude the PMI approach promises - me too. Proof positive of how hooked we are on the fantasy is the swelling numbers of PMI members and the swelling numbers of companies that require certification in the hopes that certification will deliver the business results they crave. And as long as there are vendors and institutes promising the impossible and delivering pat excuses for why reality never lives up to their theoretical utopia (poor project sponsorship, insufficient or incompetent resources, lack of discipline, etc.) companies will continue to disappoint themselves.
Bob Wells Says:
January 3rd, 2007 at 12:58 pm
I’ve been thinking recently about human behavior when faced with uncertainty or unexpected situations. I was very near an accident that locked up a city block for about an hour. The behavior of the commuters who were in the jam with me was a great example of what you can expect when both the unexpected (the accident) and the uncertain (the time to clean-up and re-open the street) occur. Rage, denial, data collection, exhortations and disgust. Strangely, those of us who were closer to the accident were presumed to know more about how long it was going to take to clean up. It took about an hour for a patrolman to get about 20 cars to backup 200 feet and take a detour.

I think the implementers of lean face a double challenge. Not only the uncertainty of change, but then facing a system/project that by its nature is uncertain and requires a management system that acknowledges that. People don’t want that. At least not without a leader with the authority to make it happen.
Jack Dahlgren Says:
January 11th, 2007 at 2:50 am
Hal,

What I appreciate most about your blog is that it challenges me to think. And unlike my blog, it is fairly positive
I’m struck by the way the more successful teams I’ve worked with have team leaders in place who do a very good job at being the “last planner” even if I did not know to call it that. This system of commitment-based execution is what seems to separate the good teams from the bad.
Thanks for the inspiration.

-Jack

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