I Don’t Believe It, Not For A Minute

 

In 1981, the rock group REO Speedwagon released a single entitled Take It On The Run, a song that appears to have highly contradictory lyrics. The narrative begins in the voice of a boyfriend who has access to fourth-hand evidence that his girlfriend is unfaithful. The song then jumps back and forth from his apparently believing this information (“…then I don’t want you around.”) and not believing it (“I don’t believe it, not for a minute…”), with a particular non-sequitur thrown in: “You’re under the gun so you take it on the run.”

Since my undergraduate degree is in English, I felt free to try and interpret what the “you’re under the gun” line meant. Unless we’re talking about an active shooter situation, “under the gun” generally means that the person is under extreme pressure. So, since this person – presumably the suspected girlfriend  -- is under extreme pressure, what does she do? She “take(s) it on the run.” Takes what on the run? Her love life? How does one do that, exactly? Is she running from place to place? If so, how does that help her avoid being “under the gun”? Since some variant of this line is repeated six times, the listener could probably safely assume the lyricist thought he was being clear – or else had simple given up on creating an internally consistent narrative.

By the way, Take it On the Run charted at #5 on the Billboard’s Hot 100 list.[i]

Which reminds me of our friends, the risk managers. According to Wikipedia, the definition of risk analysis begins “Risk analysis can be defined in many different ways, and much of the definition depends on how risk analysis relates to other concepts.” Really? A discipline that claims to be a profoundly necessary aspect of project management “can be defined in many different ways.”? Other definitions lack, well, definition, and even the PMBOK Guide® has some of its mushiest language in the risk management section. I maintain that if a concept cannot be clearly and precisely articulated as to what it is, and what its outputs are, then it’s probably an invalid concept, and much sound and fury must be created to obfuscate this fact.

Since what it is is difficult to state, (I defy anyone to make sense of the following: “The goal of risk planning is to establish how the overall risk management will be conducted for the project. The time spent, the role and responsibilities, and template formats of the reports should be all established in this process. Once the preliminary work is done, identifying, analyzing, and adjusting for risks can be done.”[ii]), let’s see if we can shed some light on the topic based on what risk management is not.

1. It’s not a performance measurement system. Risk management cannot tell a PM anything about how his project is performing.
2. It is not a way to quantify the future, since the future cannot be quantified.
3. Much of the input for risk analysis is derived from interviewing the Control Account Managers (CAMs) for their estimate (guess) of the odds of something bad happening, and its estimated (guessed) financial impact, it could be said that risk analysis is an attempt to quantify managerial experience. They can attempt away – experience can’t be quantified.
4. Much has been written about how “positive risks,” or opportunities, also fall under RM’s purview, but this is also just so much silliness. No dictionary outside the reach of the risk aficionados has any reference to “positive” or “opportunity” in their definitions of risk at all – in fact, they are universal in the opposite.
5. So, if RM is an information tool, what information do its analysis techniques pass along to PMs that influence their decisions? The estimated (guessed) odds of something bad happening? How does that help, exactly?

So, risk managers are under extreme pressure (“under the gun”) to present to the management world a coherent structure where their analysis techniques provide verifiable value, when they, well, don’t. Therefore they’re forced into a position of ensuring that the exact definitions of their concepts and techniques are sufficiently obscure as to present a moving target to anyone who would attempt to so define them (they “take it on the run”).

Since RM is a multi-billion dollar industry world-wide, I suspect it has pulled in more money than REO Speedwagon made in their careers. But as for its validity? I don’t believe it, not for a minute.

[i] Take It on the Run. (2016, July 4). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 02:08, July 10, 2016, from https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Take_It_on_the_Run&oldid=728209354

[ii] Project Management/PMBOK/Risk Management. (2015, February 25). Wikibooks, The Free Textbook Project. Retrieved 01:55, July 10, 2016 from https://en.wikibooks.org/w/index.php?title=Project_Management/PMBOK/Risk_Management&oldid=2770679.