Does Mars Really Execute a Figure-8?

 

My regular readers are aware that I often invoke the brilliant Thomas Kuhn, author of The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, who evaluated the way that scientific theories replace their obsolete predecessors. One of the examples Kuhn offers up has to do with cosmology, specifically the way that the Copernican Model replaced the Ptolemy version of the way the Solar System operated. Ptolemy, in the first century A.D., theorized that the galaxy revolved around the Earth, and cosmologists in-between the first century and 1543 (and for a while thereafter, embarrassingly) held to that model. However, when data started being collected that challenged the Ptolemy model, additional assertions were added to the Ptolemy theory, known as “epicycles,” that appeared to explain the anomalous data within the then-accepted theoretical framework.

Part of these epicycles involved the observed behavior of the planet Mars. In order for the Ptolemy model to be correct, Mars would have had to perform a little mini-circle in addition to its nominal orbit, essentially executing a figure-8 as a normal matter of course. Why an orbiting body would behave in such a fashion was never really adequately explained, for the simple reason that it couldn’t. Mars didn’t do a figure-8, commonly-accepted theories notwithstanding.

With the invention of the telescope in 1608, it wasn’t long before Copernicus’ model, of the Solar System’s bodies orbiting the Sun, was perceived to do a far superior job of explaining the known data. The movement away from the Ptolemy model towards the Copernican version was a “paradigm shift,” a term coined by Kuhn.

Meanwhile, back here in the PM world, the longest-held overarching theory in management science is that the point of all management is to “maximize shareholder wealth.” To that end, there are several anomalies in management information, such as the notion that the data coming from the General Ledger is all that’s needed to manage a business, or that Gaussian Curves have some utility in quantifying the way the future unfolds. Project Management, as a discipline, represents a paradigm shift in the management science world, but has yet to be as widely accepted as it should. For example, pick up any college-level business school text on the topic of quantitative analysis in business. I can almost guarantee that it will not include methods for taking into account Earned Value or Critical Path-generated information streams; instead, they invariably predicate their entire analysis techniques on information from either the General Ledger, statistical analysis, or both. In essence, they want us to believe that Mars executes a figure-8.

But the most pernicious aspect to these epicycles lies in the fact that their proponents got us, the PM aficionados, to adopt them in the first place. Neither the general ledger nor statistical analysis has anything to do with assessing project performance – as stated previously, those pieces of information are derived exclusively from Earned Value and Critical Path methodologies. Performing regression analysis on a project’s spending behavior to estimate at-completion costs, or using a Monte Carlo simulation to determine probable end-dates, are epicycles of an obsolete theory, that the best methods for generating the information streams that guide decisions towards that end are predicated in generally-accepted accounting principals, or GAAP, or else in statistical analysis techniques. Somehow, though, both techniques made it into the PM codex, where they absolutely do not belong. Real PM-types know perfectly well how to calculate at-completion costs and probable project end-dates, and they have nothing to do with risk management, nor GAAP, period. To be blunt, they’re not our epicycles. We PM-types know how to derive projected at-completion costs and end-dates, and shouldn’t have to account for the flaws inherent in rival management science theories.

In short, we know Mars doesn’t have a figure-8 orbit. Why doesn’t everyone else get that?