The Stepford PMO*

 

*…with apologies to (the real) Ira Levin.

It was another dark and stormy night. I was staring at the stenciled letters on my frosted window office door, ylnatS yrrebpsaR, etavirP eyE, when my secretary called out “Goodnight, Stanly. I had better get paid tomorrow, or else!” I pulled a whiskey bottle and shot glass out of my lower desk drawer, when the phone rang. It was Charlie Gumshoe, from the PM police department.

“Stanly! I need you to get over to the Stepford Robotics Corporation first thing tomorrow morning.”

“Why? What’s going on?”

“We’re not sure. They’ve got some weird connection with Monolithic Corporation. We think Monolithic is supplying them Project Management Office personnel, in exchange for some robotic welding machines.”

“What’s wrong with that?”

“Nothing on its face, but we believe that Monolithic is attempting to flood the marketplace of PM ideas with their own cliched approaches, which would inject a whole range of irrelevancies into the discussion. If they get new tech companies like Stepford parroting their particular version of Project Management…”

“I hear you. How will I get in?”

“We’ve arranged for you to assume an alias and join an Independent Cost Evaluation team on a State contract that shouldn’t have anything to do with Monolithic. Your new name is Ira Levin.”

“You mean like the author?”

“Whoa, that didn’t occur to me until just now, but that’s kind of funny, isn’t it? Just in case a Monolithic employee is there, do you have some kind of a disguise?”

“Sure.”

* *  *  *  *

As I took my visitor’s badge from the receptionist at Stepford Robotics, I saw that the rest of the team had assembled in the foyer. We headed off together to the large conference room where the review materials were waiting for us in binders. As we opened our binders, the male project team member began presenting the basics of the scope, cost, and schedule baselines, short bios of the project team, etc. Another oddity: every single member of the project team was born in 1990 but hailed from all over the globe. Along about the beginning of the third hour, they began to discuss their risk management plan.

“Are you kidding me? You guys actually spent time on a risk management plan?”

“Risk management is integral to successful Project Management!” they all said, in unison.

“Says who?”

Again the project team stared back and forth at each other, their eyes darting about, their heads going through small but jerky motions. The lone male spoke up again, his voice creepily even.

“There are many sources for this assertion, most of them respected professional associations and scholastic venues. Would you like a precise listing?”

“No, thanks. I know the academic world loves this stuff. I’m just surprised that a high-tech outfit would engage in it. Just spare me the whole business about how ‘risk management’ also involves ‘opportunity management,’ because of ‘upside risk.’”

“But that is so!” they all exclaimed, again in unison.

One of the project team who, it seemed, had been staring at a point approximately three feet in front of her face, suddenly spoke up.

“You do not look like Ira Levin.” Thanks, Charlie, I grumbled.

“The author?” I replied. “No, I don’t, but I never claimed to be him.”

She turned her head back to looking straight in front of her. The male project team member continued.

“We have a complete list of the project’s stakeholders, and will be communicating with them thoroughly throughout the project.”

“Do any of these stakeholders have connections to your competitors?”

The entire project team turned to glare at me as the presenter spoke up.

“Engaging stakeholders is integral to successful Project Management!” he asserted.

“Yeah, so is keeping tech advances out of the hands of your rivals. You can bet that they will be attempting to gain such knowledge, by secondary or tertiary means, if necessary. So I’ll repeat my question: have you vetted these ‘stakeholders’ to see if they have any connections to your competitors?”

The brunette who had been staring at a point three feet in front of her replied.

“Two on the list of stakeholders are related by marriage to one of our main competitors. Another is a second cousin to a common supplier.”

“How did you know that?”

She slowly turned her head to look at me.

“Facebook.”

“Oh.”

The presentation continued.

“We will be updating the resource dictionary used for creating the cost baseline every twelve hours.”

I interjected. “What good does that do you? I mean, after the cost baseline is approved, why do you need twice-daily updates to the resource dictionary?”

“Accurate original estimates are integral to successful Project Management!” they all said, again in unison.

“That’s the third time you all have used that specific construction, that something is ‘integral to successful Project Management.’ Who told you that?”

“Our Monolithic Corporation programmers … we mean, mentors!”

The cat was out of the proverbial bag. Monolithic and Stepford had collaborated to create a PMO staffed entirely of androids, programmed with the unsupported conventional hokum that often masquerades as legit PM. At this point the brunette spoke up again.

“Without the goatee, Mr. Levin looks just like Stanly Raspberry, the famed Project Management detective.”

The androids were slow to move, but the members of the review team who worked for Monolithic tried to grab me before I could get out the door.

“Raspberry!” they cried. “Get back here!”

“Escaping is integral to successful life-living!” I shouted over my shoulder as I raced my convertible out of the parking lot.