On To The Island of Misfit Management Science Theories

 

The American Television Christmastime special Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer originally aired December 6, 1964, and quickly became something of a classic (i). Part of its plot involves an Island of Misfit Toys, whose inhabitants, quirky as they are (their leader is a winged lion toy), long to be given to children around the world, and enlist a runaway Rudolph in their efforts to be re-entered into Santa’s worldwide toy distribution queue. (SPOILER ALERT!) They are eventually successful in this endeavor. 

Meanwhile, back in the nearly-as-fantastic world of competing Project Management theories, I have noticed a pattern in the introduction and attempted implementation of hypotheses that ostensibly fall under the PM umbrella, but are really either tried-and-true ideas that are being repackaged with new terms and being reintroduced as something new, or else they are notions that lack serious evidentiary underpinnings, but are nevertheless being sold as profoundly insightful analysis methods or management practices. Both versions of this PM strange toy concept tend to follow observable and repeatable patterns, which might help with early identification the next time one of them bursts onto the scene, thereby shortening the amount of time needed for them to be relegated to the Island of Misfit Management Science Theories.

The first step involves performing some sort of cross-pollination of existing management science ideas (generally accepted or not), and kluge them together into a cohesive structure that can be presented as a new idea. Typical sources of these conflated ideas are from the areas of statistics and the general ledger, since each of these sources have the following characteristics:
•    They are generally accepted as valid,
•    They aren’t easy to understand in-depth, making serious challenges (or challengers) more rare, and
•    Should an informed challenger actually contest the “new” theory, a ready riposte exists in implying (or even stating outright) that the challenger is simply moribund in their management approach, or else too ignorant to recognize the importance of the “new” concept.
Next, the new idea will need a whole new lexicon to accompany its introduction to the PM world. Hence, Crashing the Schedule becomes “Critical Chain,” performing a thorough cost and schedule estimate becomes “Life Cycle Estimating,” and institutional worrying tripped out in statistical jargon become “Risk Management.” Some nonsense terms can be brought in at this point, pummeling the language but helping sell the misfit idea. My favorite example is redefining “opportunity” as “upside risk,” which a certain Special Interest Group managed to do a while back. Don’t worry about the various dictionaries failing to follow the new definitions – there’s only one or two that need to be modified. Which brings us to…

Step three is to get an article published in one of the PM trade magazines or journals that introduces and markets the idea. Note that I did not say presents the evidence, scholarship, and logic behind the idea – that approach belongs to legitimate advances in the management sciences. No, I’m talking about out-and-out selling the concept, trendy jargon and all. Getting published in the Harvard Business Review is pretty much the gold standard here – get your absurd but jargon-clouded concept onto those pages, and you’re ticket to Misfit Island might not get punched for months, or years. (In fact, as an indicator of how far the overreach of Gaussian Curve aficionados have progressed in their infiltration of legitimate management science, HBR ran an article entitled “Managing Risks: A New Framework,” that had – I swear I am not making this up – a disclaimer added that read “Editors’ Note: Since this issue of HBR went to press, JP Morgan, whose risk management practices are highlighted in this article, revealed significant trading losses at one of its units. The authors provide their commentary on this turn of events in their contribution to HBR’s Insight Center on Managing Risky Behavior. ” (ii) Here’s my plain English translation: “Events following the publishing of this piece pretty much invalidated all of its assertions. Where’s the map to that one island?”)

Once reality finally bumps up against these misfit ideas, they generally drift on ice floes (strikethrough) discussion boards towards the Island of Misfit Management Science Ideas. Occasionally they are retrieved and trotted back out onstage, but it generally requires someone with Santa Clauses’ level of influence to do it.

  (i) Rudolph, The Red-Nosed Reindeer, retrieved from IMDB, http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0058536/, on October 18, 2015, 20:39.
  (ii) Kaplan, Robert S., and Mikes, Annette, “Managing Risks: A New Framework,” June 2012, retrieved from https://hbr.org/2012/06/managing-risks-a-new-framework on October 17, 2015, 19:48 MDT.