Stanly T. Raspberry, Consulting Academician

 

I walked into the business college classroom full of young, serious faces, just as the professor announced “Class, I have a real treat for you today. My former student, Stanly T. Raspberry, who has made a living as a project management investigator since 1998, will be participating in our round-table discussion.”

As my old professor, Noah Tall, strode over to shake my hand, he continued “Stan, these are my graduate students in project management, the ones who either are working as interns for a major company, or else will be in the near future. I’m sure you have a lot to tell them about the real world implementation of the concepts we’ve been covering.”

While I took a seat at the table near the front of the room, I replied “Happy to be here, Noah, though, to be sure, some of the things I’ve learned since graduation might take some of your students by surprise.”

“Well, that’s why I wanted you here. Now, who has a question for Mr. Raspberry?”

One student in the second row held up his hand.

“Mr. Raspberry, what do you consider to be the more important analysis for deciding on which projects to bid, the risk analysis, or the return on investment?”

“Neither is truly relevant” I replied.

Gasps erupted from the room.

“What do you mean, not ‘relevant’?” the original questioner persisted, his voice rising with agitation. Both ROI and the Risk Analysis are key components to portfolio management!”

“No, not really” I deadpanned. “Return on Investment might be useful when deciding on whether or not to procure an asset, and Risk Analysis might tell you when to buy insurance, and how much. But as far as choosing which projects to bid, you have to know what the potential project represents to the market you are targeting, as well as what your competition is doing with respect to gaining or losing ground to you in that market. Neither ROI nor risk analysis can return anything useful for those decisions.”

Looks of bewilderment flooded the faces of the students. Another student held up her hand.

“Mr. Raspberry, is it safer to begin re-assigning project team members when the project is 85% spent, or is it better to wait until after it is 90% spent?”

“Percent spent isn’t relevant to that decision.”

Again, gasps and looks of incredulousness spread through the room.

“Well, what would you base that decision on?” the student asked snarkily.

“You have to know the percent complete of the current project, as well as the extent that the other projects in the portfolio that the peeled-off team members will be assigned to can absorb potential schedule delays.”

“Percent spent, percent complete – what’s the diff?”

“The ‘diff,’ as you put it, is that one is a marginally relevant piece of accounting information, and the other is a vital information element in making informed project decisions, including but certainly not limited to, when to reassign staff.”

Eye rolls and pshaaws replaced gasps and looks of incredulity. From the back of the room, another young man held up his hand.

“What would you consider the best way to prioritize a milestone list? Should it be sorted by earliest-to-latest, by which milestones are accomplished by key personnel, or by which ones are the most expensive?”

“Milestone lists aren’t relevant to scheduled activity priorities. You have to load activities and their durations into a Critical Path Method-capable software platform, and then add in the schedule logic. Have the computer perform a forward pass and backward pass, and return the critical path and levels of float in the non-critical activities. Then you can make an informed decision about task priority, but not until.”

Mocking laughter replaced the eyerolls and pshaaws.

“Listen, people” I began. “There are a lot of analysis techniques out there, but not all of them generate relevant information. In fact, many of them are positively useless, even though they may have been sold to you as vital.”

“Professor Tall, did you say this was one of your students?” a student in the front row demanded.

“Well, yeah, but I didn’t say he was one of my better ones.”

I gave Noah a look, as if to say “Really?”

“Professor Tall” I started, “you said these students were all interns of a major company. May I ask which company?”

“Why, Monolithic Corporation, of course” Professor Tall said pompously, with the students beaming with confident pride.

“I should have known…”