To the Core of Project Management
We need to drill down to the core of project management
Current frameworks, methodologies and standards in the field of project management proof to be inadequate to keep projects out of problems. The only plausible cause is that the authors/experts who put them together didn't know how projects really work.
Instead of relying on their judgement, we need reality as an independent reference, just like as for natural sciences. That is why we need to drill down to the core of project management.
What we see of projects, is just on the surface of an imaginary ball. To understand how projects really work, and to develop the next generation of project management standards, we need to know what is in the core of project management.
What is the problem current project management frameworks?
They don’t work as good as we hoped. Formal techniques, like planning, have, what scientists call a weak correlation with project success. That means that in more than half of the projects fail despite using formal planning techniques or succeed despite not using planning techniques. It is hard to believe, but for 6 of every 10 projects, these methodologies appear to be useless.
They are not completing projects successfully can’t prevent projects stay out of problems.
Every time a project management framework gets updated, they seem to step into the same pitfall.
What is wrong with how new project management frameworks gets developed?
These frameworks get updated based on the input and opinion of many thousands, hundreds of thousands of experts. That means these frameworks reflect their collective understanding of how project work. We just saw that in 6 of 10 projects these methodologies are useless. Which basically means that despite what they say seems very convincing and plausible, it isn’t. Also this is hard to accept, but experts don’t know how projects work. If they would, their recommendations would be more reliable. Like the calculations of nuclear physicists. These are incredibly reliable.
How else to develop project management frameworks?
For developing project management methodologies, we just need a reference to see what is right and what is wrong as exist in natural sciences, like nuclear physics, astrophysics, biology, neuroscience etc. Nature itself.
In natural sciences, scientists use models to explain the observations they see. These same models are used to make predictions that can be verified by new observations. When these observations confirm the prediction, then it is real. When the predictions don’t match, it isn’t real.
Instead of experts making the judgement of how projects really work, it is necessary to drill down to the level of the laws or nature and the domain of natural sciences.
The model for project organizations is pretty simple to start with.
How should that model look like for project organizations?
The purpose of the model just to understand what makes projects successful and what makes projects run into problems and fail.
If we consider how projects manifest is what is on the surface of an imaginary ball, then on the outside of the ball are the achievements and successes, the problems and failures.
To complete projects successfully, it is necessary to fulfill certain basic needs. A basic need is defined as something that must be fulfilled to complete projects successfully, else projects run into problems. Basic needs is the first layer beneath manifestation.
Fulfilling the basic needs and preventing they go unfulfilled, is about people to do or don’t do something. This is the layer of processes. That is how processes get executed and what people actually do. This is also the layer of behavior.
People make use of systems and tools. Examples of systems or tools are projects themselves, organizations, planning software, project management frameworks, etc.
These systems and tools work confirm laws of nature that apply to everything in the universe. The rules that can’t be broken. This is the core of projects and everything. If we can explain how projects work in terms of fundamental laws, we know we have a solid foundation to base our strategies and frameworks upon.
Can you give some examples?
Laws of nature
To start with the laws of nature, projects can’t be seen apart from the people that do projects.
People have desires and worries. That is how the human brain works. People visualize their desires and worries and use their imagination and ingenuity to determine how to achieve it or avoid it. Some of our desires or threads require big and complex works they have never done before and they can’t do alone. It is these kinds of works we typically call projects. It is a practical definition of what projects are.
This implies that projects, including the project vision, spark in nature.
The way these projects get executed, is completely subordinated to the human brain and limitations of human conscious rational thinking, cognitive thinking, knowledge work, brainpower and complex behaviors.
Systems
For completing projects successfully, which we now know are desires for big and complex works, never done before that can’t be do alone, people need to overcome their natural limitations and the limitations of the human brain. Systems and tools are inventions to overcome these natural limitations.
Projects are systems to enable people to mobilize large groups, collaborate with many people to align all the work, overcome obstacles and solve problems, create clarity what to accomplish and how to make that happen. And must be flexible enough to adapt when things are changing, and surprises happen.
From this perspective, agriculture, writing and counting are systems are ancient systems that enabled our ancestors to do the first mega projects (pyramids).
Another critical system for project management are multi-project organizations. Project organizations are a more effective and efficient way of executing projects.
Some characteristics of projects, project organizations and for many other tool, systems, frameworks and processes for projects are complexity, vastness and bulkiness.
Process execution
How just three specific processes are executed, is enough to predict whether projects will be completed successfully or will run into problems or fail. All other processes in project organizations can be considered as sub processes. These three processes are:
- Starting new projects
- Managing projects toward completion
- Executing the tasks needed to complete the projects
Starting new projects must not result in basic needs going unfulfilled. Managing projects towards completion, involves fulfilling the basic needs needed to complete projects successfully else the projects will run into problems. Executing the tasks that result in project completion is only possible when the basic needs are fulfilled.
When projects and project organizations become bigger and more complex, when more people are involved and the dynamics gets more chaotic, they rapidly become inadequate to successfully complete projects successfully and to prevent projects from running into problems. Very specific and predictable steps in the scenarios for fulfilling the basic needs, or for preventing the basic needs go unfulfilled, start falling short. They systems fall short. This is independent of the industry or the type of projects.
Basic needs
Whether projects will complete successfully, or will run into problems and fail, seems fully dependent on fulfilling 4 specific basic needs.
These basic needs directly stem from what type of work projects typically are used for: big and complex works, never done before and can’t be done alone. These works, these projects, can only be completed successfully without resources, collaboration, clarity and adaptability, else they run into problems.
Fulfilling these basic needs is also enough to complete projects successfully or to dramatically improve the reliability of projects.
Manifestation
Project are successful when they comply to the desires (either initial, or the current).
What is the evidence or proof for this model?
There is be quite a lot evidence that proofs this model.
- It is confirmed analyzing hundreds of problems, interviews, analyzing organizations.
- By case studies of success stories.
- Reverse engineering and decoding project management strategies.
- Predicting outcome of improvement initiatives for breakthrough performance.
- The principles of this model apply to nature, evolution, can be recognized in the anatomy of the human brain, and can be recognized in geo-politics.
- Knowledge from other fields like biology or neurology, clarifying and confirm observation in projects and project organizations.
The insights of this model made it possible to development of new solutions and groundbreaking solutions that are easier to learn and easier to use, like for project organizations and project managers in the field of multi-project management, project pipelining, project startup, reduction learning curve for junior project managers, project execution, project recovery and personal efficiency and performance
What is the next step
This model is free to use by anybody. I encourage the project management community, authors working on project management frameworks, universities, students and researches to make use of this model for further research, developing new solutions.