Oh Yeah? Says Who?

 

In a previous post I described the two basic types of project management practitioners, whom I categorized as “Processors” and “Effectives.” A quick re-hash: Processors believe a project has been properly managed when the project team has demonstrably complied with all of the PM-oriented procedures, with the project’s actual outcome being a secondary consideration, if at all. Effectives, conversely, believe a project has been properly managed if it meets all of its scope requirements, on-time, on-budget (or even early and under budget), with strict observance of proper procedure being a secondary consideration, if at all.

Normally the Effectives (the category in which I count myself) could simply sit back and let the unblinking, unfeeling free marketplace weed out the PM practitioners who either leaned towards the Processor category, or were completely immersed in it, as their organizations’ projects failed at a prodigious rate (but, hey! They were in compliance!), leaving the Effectives as the only ones claiming to be PMs who were actually drawing a paycheck. I actually had hoped that this sort-of Darwinian-style weeding out of the Processors would take on an aspect of the slowest-runner-in-a-Jurassic Park – movie; alas, it was not to be.

The primary reason the Processors remain entrenched in the PM-brand epistemological arena is because they dominate the procedure-writing departments (naturally), and these procedures are becoming positively ubiquitous. There are lots of organizations pumping out documents that pretend to have some sort of insight that compels PM practitioners to do things the way their authors want, or else … well, or else you people are simply not “doing” PM right.

Now, for those of you who want to point out that my blog’s publisher, the Project Management Institute®, engages in this very action and has done so for some time, I have two things to say:
•    We were here first!
•    Besides, the Institute has become so large that the competition to be on the teams that write anything on the topic of project management has become so intense that it’s a near impossibility for anyone but genuine experts to even get close to those projects.
Which leaves the opinionated others to make their marks with the other management science societies, organizations, and associations, and make their marks they do.

I won’t take on the risk guys again – frankly, as a target they’ve become far too easy. But consider this quote from one association’s guide to implement an Earned Value Management System consistent with the ANSI Standard (748):

"The program established cost charging structure will help to ensure that actual costs are collected so that direct comparison with associated budgets can be made at the appropriate WBS level(s)." 1

For those of you who don’t have time to read the ANSI Standard on Earned Value, I can tell you that it does not include any discussion about making a “direct comparison” of budgets to actual costs. None. A Cost Variance is defined as making a “direct comparison” of the earned value to actual costs. A Schedule Variance is defined as making a “direct comparison” of the earned value to the budget. A “direct comparison” of actual costs to budgets yields no useful information in Earned Value space. And yet, this quote is from a guide that’s supposed to be consistent with the Standard.

Look, if these Processors want to crank out procedures, instructions, and guides that tell everyone else how they are supposed to be “doing” project management properly, I say they should knock themselves out, and write anything and everything that makes them happy. But to the extent that management science maintains some claim to actually being scientific, then its assertions ought to be connected to observable results in the business world. 

Think of it this way: if you were to have a sudden and acute need to know the best way of evading meat-eating dinosaurs, would you rather hear from a track-and-field coach, or someone who had actually spent a lot of time on Isla Nublar, successfully evading said dinosaurs?

1  National Defense Industrial Association, “Earned Value Management Systems EIA-748-C Intent Guide,” April 29, 2014.