July 14, 2005
Why do so many in the project management community have difficulty accepting that someone’s less formal, less structured approach is any less valid than a highly visible, extremely formal methodology? There is no universal right way to manage projects.
Over the course of the last couple of months, I’ve had it suggested to me by a number of different people, in a number of different ways that project management is — or at least should be — a fixed practice that is universal to all projects. In other words, there is a right way and a wrong way, and if you aren’t doing it the right way then you aren’t doing project management.
While leading a workshop recently, an example occurred to me that clearly illustrates why our various approaches to project management may be very different. An example that we all can relate to every day: managing our time. Think about time management for a moment. Think about what you have read, what you have learned, and how you have practiced it. A search of the phrase "time management" turns up no less than 1,160 "relevant" titles on Amazon.com, and more than 5.9 million hits on Google. Clearly this is a popular theme.
So how do we practice time management? For some of us, our response might be accompanied by the same sheepish grin that we respond with when we are asked about how we practice project management. The look that says, "I know what I should be doing, but I don’t necessarily have the time or focus to do it that way all the time."
And yet there are so many ways that time management can and does get practiced, and tools that are used to practice it. As far as calendars go, they come in all shapes and sizes. There are calendars that have a week to every two pages, a page every day, or even two pages per day. We have online calendars in Outlook or Notes, portable calendars on our Palm Pilots, tablet planners for our tablets. Over and above the tools we use, there are more training courses in time management than you or I have had hot dinners.
All in all, the array of offerings and techniques for time management is as broad and diverse as it is for project management. But when it comes down to it, how do we really manage our time? We do what works. Each of us has evolved our approach to thinking about our goals, planning our months, weeks and days, and keeping track of our commitments, to-dos and appointments. We have selected the tools that make the most sense for us. We have developed processes and techniques that fit with our lives and the complexities of our roles. For the most part, we hopefully get done most of what we mean to get done in any given day or week.
So too do we each manage our projects. The techniques change, the toolsets are not necessarily consistent, and the philosophies and methodologies we subscribe to are different, but the underlying principles of getting stuff done are still there. So why is there a prevailing belief by so many that there is only one right way to manage projects, with the corresponding conviction that everyone must aspire to that single, universal form? Why do we have difficulty in accepting that someone’s less formal, less structured approach is any less valid than some highly visible, extremely formal methodology based upon the latest version of the PMBOK?
In reality, one of the biggest reasons that this problem exists is because standards like the PMBOK are in place and so widely referenced. The problem is not with the PMBOK per se, but with the belief that the PMBOK is a process rather than a standard. When standards are viewed as process, a dangerous level of abstraction emerges. This abstraction confuses what we need to do to with how we need to do it. As a result, slavish adherence to the standard becomes the expected norm regardless of value or relevance. Standards should be used to define the what rather than the how. If a standard says I should prepare a status report for my key stakeholders, it doesn’t mean that my status report will have the structure, content, look or feel of the next person’s. It means that I will prepare a status report, but how I prepare it will and must depend on the requirements of the project. That does not make my approach right, nor does it make someone else’s approach wrong.
At the end of the day we are getting confused between what works and what some believe is required for ‘proper’ project management. To be fair, it’s not surprising that the desire for a single approach to project management has the level of intensity that it does. Once we find something that works for us, it is human nature to want to share it with the world. The problem is when this better way takes on the character of ideological fervor — the tone of the debate gets distilled down to "either you’re on the bus, or you’re off the bus". What works for the project starts to take a back seat to what aligns with the ideology.
As I’ve discussed before, what works for us should be what works for us right now, for the challenges of the project we are managing and the organization we are managing in. That’s not to say it will work in all situations, or that we won’t need to adapt our techniques for future projects, in different environments or when managing for other organizations. There is plenty of room on this bus for all of us.