Rescue the Project You Must

 

I really like Jon Taffer’s style.

Star of the Spike Network television show Bar Rescue, Taffer is an expert at converting bars on the verge of bankruptcy and ruin into vibrant, successful enterprises. If you are wondering why the work of PM consultants rarely involves the kind of drama that could serve as the basis for a television series, at least part of the reason involves Taffer’s approach to his consulting business. I’ve seen several episodes of Bar Rescue, and in each the following aspects of Taffer’s approach manifest:

• He’s obviously a subject matter expert,
• And is crystal clear in his analysis, even to the point of enraging his clients.
• On those occasions where his clients are sustaining some sort of managerial pathology, and attempt to defend it and state their intentions of keeping such poor strategies in place, I have never seen Taffer back down, and acquiesce to the client…
• …even if it means that he’s released from performing the consulting work.

Conversely, I have never seen a project management consultant consistently engage those tactics. On the contrary,

• I have seen many a consultant insist on implementing some strange information system “remedies,” including comparing line items in the basis of estimate (BOE) to line items in the actual costs listing from the General Ledger,
• But will couch their analyses in terms that allow them to soft-sell their assertions should the client become visibly upset, much less enraged.
• These same consultants will immediately back off as soon as their customers begin to defend the very practices that are clearly leading to their problems.
• Especially if the consultants think they may be released from the job.

Another consultant whose style I admire is the fictional character Yoda, from the Star Wars films (specifically, I through III, and V through VI). Consider how his approach is similar to Jon Taffer’s:

• He’s obviously a subject matter expert, as evidenced by his abilities with a light saber, even given his diminutive stature,
• And is clear where he stands with respect to the issues, if you get past his odd syntactical style.
• On those occasions where he encounters those who are either weak in the ways of The Force, or else are committed to the Dark Side, he is unequivocal in his position, even if the last hope for that galaxy far, far away is at the point of exhaustion and doubt,
• And does not change, even if the rest of that same galaxy is arrayed against him.

Is everyone here seeing a pattern? The problem, as I see it, is that profoundly vapid management techniques are being introduced into the popular PM codex because some truly goofy PM-types will hire some truly renowned consultants to throw their weight behind some truly vacuous techniques, and those techniques suddenly become mainstreamed. It’s analogous to a situation where Manhattan bar managers suddenly decide to replace olives with avocado pits in the drinks that would normally be served with olives, and other bar owners across the country followed suit, without even asking for the evidence that that’s a good idea. Or, if youths showing an early capacity for channeling The Force were to spontaneously decide that the ability to play ping pong was a critical skill to acquire, and began devoting energy and time to that end. The external witnesses to this might scoff at its absurdity, but I can guar-an-tee that many of the PM practitioners reading this blog are completely okay with the notion that project management, done “properly,” must needs include a Monte Carlo analysis for the risk portion of their major projects.

So, in addition to last week’s blog’s criterion for real consultants versus the pretenders, we can add one more: like Jon Taffer and Yoda, the real deal never backs down from what they know to be the right way of doing things. That means that there’s only one question you consultants need to ask yourselves:

Are you so sure of your technical approach to PM problem-solving that you’re willing to be exiled to a swamp planet if your ideas are rejected by the galaxy around you?

Lagniappe

I will be presenting some of the ideas from my third book, The Unavoidable Hierarchy, at the dinner meeting of PMI's Rio Grande Chapter this Thursday, in Albuquerque, NM. The meeting is held at the Sandia Resort, starting at 6:00 MDT, with the presentation at 7:00.