Project Management, and the philosophy of under-performance.

I am going to commit a heresy. 

Project Management doesn’t work very well, particularly for complex projects.

Here are some things that do work well; commercial A380 aircraft, the Toyota Corolla, heart bypass surgery, this computer I am writing on. 

What do all these things have in common? 

Our expectation of their performance, and their actual performance are pretty well aligned. I expect to have a smooth and safe flight in an A380 from Sydney to Dubai, and that mostly happens. I regard the risk of falling out of the sky as pretty remote, and the evidence supports that perception.

Let’s look at the performance of major projects. 

The evidence is that the likelihood of cost and time overrun is in excess of 50%, sometimes a lot more. If aircraft had the same statistics, there would be no airline industry. If I was to require brain surgery, the doctor would tell me the statistics of complications, then require me to sign a form. If this were the case in major projects, we would have to require boards, clients and project owners sign a form verifying that they accept the likelihood of cost and time overrun as over 50%. Instead we pretend that its less than 10% often referenced with a Monte Carlo simulation (which as the data shows, is very often misleading).

The Philosophy of Project Management

Project Management has a philosophy. All forms of human knowledge have a philosophy, as philosophy is the discipline which examines our understanding of the nature of knowledge itself. Project Management even has a book called the Project Management Book of Knowledge (PMBOK). We believe that when the body of knowledge (PMBOK or other) is applied effectively the results will lead to an outcome which delivers certain benefits, at a certain time within a certain cost limitation. When this does not happen, we focus on the word “effectively” and our assumption is that more effective application of the existing paradigm is the answer. Thus we hire people and develop tools, methods, training, processes etc, that are all aimed at effectively implementing a dominant project management philosophy.

But, what if the philosophy which underpins our understanding of project management is flawed, and so does not allow us to see that the picture is incomplete? 

Project Management is philosophically foundationalist. That is to say that its basic ‘ways of thinking’ have been developed and are understood by its participants as fundamental and self-evident. While many project managers use different approaches they still assume that the whole answer to project performance is contained in the underlying logic. This goes for most researchers also. That underlying logic is very simple:

Ad hoc organisation of finite ventures is unreliable and wasteful, and therefore if the tasks and people which contribute to the venture are effectively identified, planned and managed, the predictable outcomes will be achieved.

This is a reason-based argument and Plato would be thrilled. Sadly, it doesn’t work very well in practice, and the great empirical philosopher David Hume, would not be even slightly surprised.

Project management methods and theories were not revealed through rigorous experimentation or observation, as they were/are for the natural sciences, or even much of social science. For example, observation, experimentation and inductive reasoning led Newton to develop his three laws of motion, and subsequent testing of these theories over and over have verified their applicability, at least at a human scale. Every time we fly in an aircraft we are putting our faith in the applicability and robustness of Newton’s laws. However, Newton understood the link between his insights and the philosophic lens through which he looked. Indeed, his laws were published under the title “Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica” (at the time philosophy and science were intertwined)

Trust the data - its better than the alternative.

With a very few exceptions, most practitioners and scholars of project management seem to be insensitive to the empirical discipline applied to many other areas of human endeavour. At best it seems that we seek marginal improvement by working on variables (such as leadership capability or team performance) that are slow, expensive and difficult to alter and/or replicate.

When the data shows a consistent result which is inconsistent with the result which the theory claims to be able to deliver, then there are two possible problems:

1. The data is wrong
2. The model is inadequate.

It is true that in the world of major projects the data is very often of questionable accuracy, though I suspect that time and cost overrun is more likely to be under-reported than over-reported. Data transparency and reliability is a big problem (one which we at Endeavour Programme seek to resolve over the coming years for the benefit of all). However, the near universality of time and cost overrun reporting indicates that even if things are only half as bad as the data tells us, it’s still a huge problem. This brings us to the challenging point. 

Perhaps our model is inadequate for reliably delivering the time, cost and benefits objectives it claims to be able to achieve. 

Perhaps it is time to stop “believing” traditional project management as its stands, is sufficient. Perhaps it is necessary, but insufficient.

Data Driven Project Management

This is the basis of our notion of data driven project management. We propose that an empirical base for project decisions is a necessary step in the evolution of project management, and that the technology to do this is now available. This will surely disrupt the current paradigm and the disruption will not be comfortable, but it is inexorable.

In 1903, a new technology (the internal combustion engine) made heavier than air flight a reality, and now we can travel in confidence from Sydney to Dubai on the QF1 A380. The Wright brothers did not achieve flight by continuously improving the glider, they added a technology. Until the technology was available, flight was not achievable. The result of that 30 seconds of powered flight changed the world.

We invite you to join us on this socio-technological journey. The first step is to recognize that there is something missing in the current philosophy of project management. The second step is to let the let the empirical data inform your perspective.