Guessing is not a strategy: How to build decision velocity with AI and real-time data
June 10, 2026 | Live Webinar
Free Market PM: Leading Indicators
David Schmaltz is a project manager in Takoma Park, Maryland.
The falling price of eggs was the early sign that efforts to fix Poland’s economy were working. What nontraditional indicators and rhythms should you be watching on your projects? The author suggests encouraging responsible commitment, for starters, and then monitoring its reliability.
Part I of this series introduced the concept of Free Market Project Management, comparing centrally planned economies with centrally planned projects and finding similar patterns. Part II, “Creating Currency,” proposed the creation of a currency that holds real value for a project's “economy.” Part III, “Unfixing Prices,” compared price fixing with estimating, and presented a free market technique for unfixing the price of projects. This article considers how free market project management monitors activity.
After Poland’s Solidarity Movement gained control of the government, the economy, which had been tightly controlled under Communist rule, hit the doldrums. The aging manufacturing infrastructure, which had produced goods and collected entitlements without regard to profitability, was threatening to bankrupt the new regime. The economy continued to march to an imposed rhythm that could not support the expected standard of living. Newly elected government ministers caucused to discover a more effective alternative. One of their advisors, …
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