Guessing is not a strategy: How to build decision velocity with AI and real-time data
June 10, 2026 | Live Webinar
A Game Without End
David Schmaltz is a project manager in Takoma Park, Maryland.
Many organizations are marching toward enterprisewide process maturity, but the very systems intended to bring projects under control often impede communication and discourage personal responsibility. This leads to efforts to control at ever-lower levels, hobbling otherwise able teams. Can an old parable shine light on a new path?
When the owner visited his garden, he was shocked to find that someone had been stealing his most precious fruit. Interrogating the two watchmen, a blind man and a lame man, each denied culpability. The blind watchman said, "I surely cannot be guilty of the theft of a thing I could not even see." The lame watchman reported, "I wasn’t able to lay my hand on any of the fruit, for you know that my legs refuse to carry me a step." Considering the situation carefully, the orchard owner asked the blind watchman to carry the lame watchman over to the trees. In this way, the old testament scholars reported, God will judge his people by uniting the body with the soul, and fix responsibility on the reunited whole. (Leviticus Rabba 4)
My client reported that his company had embarked on a multi-year effort to increase process maturity. Their development systems have been under very sophisticated statistical process control for years, but delivery reliability was still poor. No projects end on time. Each falls into a certification mire near the projected end, …
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"If I had no sense of humor, I would long ago have committed suicide." - Mahatma Gandhi |