Use A Desk Fan In Project Management

Project complexity seems here to stay. The PMI 2009 book of the year was about project complexity. And, a 2013 PMI Pulse of the Professionreport states that “today’s world of expanding globalization, rapid pace of change, intense competition, and continual innovation in a ‘do more with less’ market environment is forcing organizations to recognize that their strategies - and the projects executed to implement them - are becoming increasingly complex.” Well said.

I spent decades working on complex top secret engineering projects at the CIA and appreciate the challenges associated with achieving success in that kind of environment. For me, and many of my coworkers, the goal was to come up with “elegant” solutions to those complex projects. Elegant solutions involved achieving the maximum desired effect with the smallest, or simplest effort.

One of my favorite stories, which I hope is true, but may be a modern myth, does a great job of illustrating an elegant solution. It contrasts an $8 million vs. $20 approach for solving a toothpaste factory production problem.

A toothpaste factory had a problem. They sometimes shipped empty toothpaste boxes without the tube inside. This challenged their perceived quality with the buyers and distributors. Understanding how important the relationship with them was, the CEO of the company assembled his top people. They decided to hire an external engineering company to solve their empty boxes problem. The project followed the usual process: budget and project sponsor allocated, RFP, and third-parties selected. Six months, and $8 million, later they had a fantastic solution – on time, on budget, and high quality. Everyone in the project was pleased.

They solved the problem by using a high-tech precision scale that would sound a bell and flash lights whenever a toothpaste box weighed less than it should. The line would stop, someone would walk over, remove the defective box, and then press another button to re-start the line. As a result of the new package monitoring process, no empty boxes were being shipped out of the factory.

With no more customer complaints, the CEO felt the $8 million was well spent. He then reviewed the line statistics report and discovered the number of empty boxes picked up by the scale in the first week was consistent with projections, however, the next three weeks were zero! The estimated rate should have been at least a dozen boxes a day. He had the engineers check the equipment; they verified the report as accurate.

Puzzled, the CEO traveled down to the factory, viewed the part of the line where the precision scale was installed, and observed just ahead of the new $8 million dollar solution sat a $20 desk fan blowing the empty boxes off the belt and into a bin. He asked the line supervisor what that was about.

“Oh, that,” the supervisor replied, “Bert, the kid from maintenance, put it there because he was tired of walking over to restart the line every time the bell rang.”

I believe that creating workplace environments where elegant solutions are desired, encouraged, and supported is a primary responsibility of the executive. I also believe there is much a project manager can do to help get the executive to take those kinds of actions. I have described the steps a project manager can take in my recently published book titled "How To Get Executives To Act For Project Success." It is available on Amazon.