Sherlock Holmes on Project Management

 

It was relatively late in the morning when my friend Sherlock Holmes[i] emerged from his bedroom and into the sitting room at 221B Baker Street.

“Was that the post I heard earlier?”

“Yes,” I replied, “it was addressed to the both of us, so I went ahead and opened it. It appears to be an interesting case.”

Holmes sat down in his familiar chair, put his feet upon the ottoman, then closed his eyes as he placed his fingertips together, resting them on the bridge of his nose.

“Pray, read the letter, Watson.”

“It’s from a fellow who’s responsible for a large military project, and he needs to know about his performance.”

“Did the project come in on-time, and within its budget?”

“That’s just it, Holmes … the project isn’t finished yet.”

“This is hardly worthy of our time, Watson. All he has to do is compare his progress against his objectives to where he had planned to be, and then compare a monetized version of this progress against how much he’s actually spent, and those two figures should give him a fairly accurate idea. In fact, this solution is so straight-forward and easy, I’m rather surprised this PM did not go to that fellow in the United States – what was his name again, Raspberry? – for a solution.”

“Stanly is already engaged; besides, this fellow is here in the UK.”

“Very well, send along the answer I just articulated, and be done with it.”

“But that’s just it, Holmes” I started. “His support staff keeps telling him that he ought to use other comparisons to determine his performance.”

“What devices is this Project Manager subjected to that he’s expected to use to determine such things?”

“He includes a list here: statisticians tell him the odds of something bad happening.”

“Irrelevant – nothing more than quantified worrying.”

“The accountants project his costs based on the rate he’s spending now.”

“Without an assessment of his percent complete” Holmes replied, “that is also irrelevant.”

“His communications specialists monitor the number of stakeholders he has engaged.”

“Also irrelevant, and maybe even harmful. What are the criterion for these ‘stakeholders’?”

“He doesn’t say.”

“Are there any more?”

“Yes, one – this PM has estimators who are constantly re-estimating the cost of the remaining work.”

At this, Holmes suddenly sat upright, dropped his hands and opened his eyes.

“This is the worst of all!” he cried. “It’s not only irrelevant and inaccurate, but it takes time and energy to develop, and replaces its valid counterpart!”

“Valid counterpart? What do you mean?”

“An accurate assessment of at-completion costs and dates is probably the most valuable information that a PM can access, but you can’t get a precise figure by constantly re-estimating the cost or schedule baseline. Every last one of the data items that goes into such an ‘estimate’ is entirely subjective, and the more subjective data you allow into the analysis the less reliable the final product becomes – the very definition of a rubber baseline. They’re irrelevant and inaccurate clues. The at-completion data must be provided based on objective data, otherwise it’s worthless. Small wonder our PM is in the dark about how his project is performing.”

“But Holmes, if he has all of these so-called experts feeding him irrelevant and inaccurate information, and he needs to know his performance and valid at-completion dates and costs, what is to be done?”

Holmes reclined back in his chair, and again closed his eyes with his fingertips resting on the bridge of his nose.

“Reply to our intrepid and grasping PM that he need only divide his percent complete into his cumulative actual costs, and he will have a valid, accurate, and easy to employ estimate of his costs at completion. Have him do the same with his cumulative duration, and he will know within ten percent his projected end date.”

“What if such an analysis returns that he is doing poorly?”

“Then more robust project controls techniques are called for to isolate the issues. But that wasn’t what this fellow asked of us – he only requested to know how he was performing, and what I just told you is the way to ascertain that.”

“Are you sure?”

“Completely. Those data elements are almost exclusively objective in most cases, and only mildly subjective in others. Their results will tell him the answer to his original inquiry.”

“What should he do with all of his other so-called experts? They’re certain to impugn your intellectual integrity.”

“He should tell them to report back to Moriarity that their attempts to hopelessly complicate basic performance measurement on this particular project have come to naught.”

[i] Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson were characters developed by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle – I’m just borrowing them for this blog.