Can A Project Have A Midlife Crisis?

 

I think a project can have a "red convertible" moment. It's that breakdown, or more that revelation, in which you remember why you were doing something in the first place.

Lets say your company needs a new service for a new market. People are all excited. A project is launched to make it happen. The excitement carries the team to great heights. It's a little chaotic, but it appears progress is being made.

We don't like chaos. We need structure. So along the ride discussions emerge on how to structure this darn thing. Procedures are created. Some people take Prince 2 classes. Templates are created. And methodological debates are replacing discussions about content. The "abstract how" is overtaking the "specific why".

Before you know it, project life consists of rituals around time sheets and progress reports, approval procedures and the need for more certified team members. If a project runs long enough and isolated enough, the mechanism is overtaking the context. When you ask a team what they think is your risk, and they reply back with 4 templates for risk assessment. That's loosing context over mechanism.

Then a transistion occurs. Something triggers the revelation that this can go on for ever without result. And time is short.

The project team has to "go back" to the start of the project to remember the original context, the why are we doing what we are doing, and integrate that somehow in there current mechanistic approach in the project.

This transition is the "red convertible" moment. After years and years of perfecting the process of earning money and status, middle aged men just realized their childhood dreams and intentions. The proverbial "red convertible".

This is basically the idea behind Johnston’s creative cycle.

This cycle "… divides the creative process into stages through which form emerges and differentiates from its creative context. This creative process applies equally well to an individual life, a relationship, a creative project, and global culture. … Central to his model is the notion that context is necessarily forgotten in order for form to develop. The task of the first half of the creative cycle is differentiating context and form. The task of the second half is integrating them into a creative whole."

This is a model of formative patterning. How patterns in human systems are developed. 

I recognize this cycle in the creation of knowledge.

I originally approached projects from within the context of newspapers, a very people driven industry. All kinds of disciplines getting together and just "make things happen". The more I started studying projects, the more abstract I got. A more mechanistic view. After realizing that a mechanistic view is not the answer, I slowly am integrating emotions and identity back into the mix. The context I originally new by heart, but lost during the process of "making sense".

The struggle to get in touch again, the start of the transformation, is the "red convertible". You know that something is missing. You realize you said goodbye to past patterns. But you haven't made the transition yet.

This is when you see consultants entering the building to put new procedures on top of old procedures. Replacing old certifications with new certifications.

If you didn't have any clue what you were doing before, this is the proper solution.

If you were good at your job, it just isn't showing up lately, you might be in transition. You might be shifting from "differentiation" to "integration" in your creative cycle.

When you are talking more about the adoption of new groundbreaking approaches than how great this thing is when it is finished, you know you are heading for transition.

Do you recognize this "red convertible"?
 

Bas de Baar is a writer who draws about people in transition. He loves to make visual maps and travel guides for the collaborators of our brave new world.