Lost and Found

David Schmaltz is a project manager in Takoma Park, Maryland.

  Innovation   ProjectsAtWork  

How did we come to believe we should manage projects the way we do? In the fourth and final installment of “The Secret Life of Projects” series, the author looks for insights among the great book stacks of the Library of Congress, finding some guidance in the laws of situation and integration. But no secret.

“Never think that you must agree to either this or that, find a third way.” — Mary Parker Follett

I was sitting at desk 119, next to the water fountain in the cathedral known simply as The Main Reading Room of The Library of Congress, when the insight came. The narrow shelf at the top of the angled glass-topped reading surface was stacked high with books. I had been searching for something. The Head Researcher helped me find a first toehold into the cavernous catalog, and I’d worked from there, reviewing scores of titles. How did we come to believe we should manage projects the way that we do?

This being the greatest store of information ever assembled in the history of the world, I had a surplus of resources to answer my question. I suppose I was actually searching in that dark wood Dante talked about, the one where one awakens in the middle of life, in mid-career, and questions where to go from there. I suppose I figured I could gain some insight into my own future by investigating some other peoples’ pasts. …

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