Strategies in the Disruption Game

 

Can Game Theory deliver any insights on the subject of Disruptive Influences (ProjectManagement.com’s theme for October)? Last week I blogged about the difficulties involved when a formulaic, or canned strategy, is employed in a project situation where a novel approach is appropriate. If we flesh out the payoff grid (and Game Theory In Management Nation knows how I love payoff grids), it would look something like this:

In those instances where a canned strategy is both called for and is employed (scenario #1), which, if we employ the Pareto Principal, is probably 80% of the time, then things will probably work out, save for the garden variety project bizarre happenstance(s). Similarly, if a new or novel strategy is called for and employed (scenario #4), usually because of new technology or unusual circumstances signaling a novel approach is needed, then there’s a workable match between the work and the management approach. I discussed scenario #2 last week, which leaves the Game Theory in Management Nation with scenario #3. What happens when the traditional PM organization tackles a project that really isn’t analogous to any of the rest of its portfolio? Is it not human nature to invoke the familiar, and use the same strategies that brought success historically?

Indeed it is, and therein lies our problem. To be blunt, in those instances where a novel technical approach is called for and attempted, but not expected nor accepted by the sponsoring macro organization, several business model pathologies can be expected to manifest, including:

• Disdain. The PM attempting the novel technical approach will earn the disdain of the organization’s resident “experts,” who have the entire history of successful similar projects behind them. The upstart PM’s experience, capability, or even intelligence will be impugned at length – it’s just part of being an innovator.
• Competition. The keepers of the organization’s canned strategies will make some attempt at wresting control of the work from the PM attempting the innovative approach. You can bet on it. Of course, the favorite (and, in almost all cases, most powerful) weapon at the keepers’ disposal will be their record of successful similar projects. This is to be expected, since, by definition, these keepers of the canned strategies have absolutely no idea when a new project’s circumstances are outside the parameters of “similar” or analogous projects in their histories. It’s somewhat like our friends, the accountants, believing that every information stream that deals with budgets or costs simply must be derived from the general ledger. I can only imagine the difficulties encountered by the first PM-type who dared to state that a Cost Variance is not the difference between the budget and the actual costs; rather, it’s the difference between the Earned Value and actual costs. He or she must have been laughed out of the manager’s lounge – but they were right, of course.
• Claiming credit. If, in the rare occurrence that the PM with the novel approach actually overcomes the tsunami-sized bow wave of organizational resistance, and succeeds in bringing in the project on-time, on-budget, the traditionalists will insist that the true credit should reside within their organization, and not with the innovative PM.

So, how does the novel approach-embracing PM counter these tactics? While there’s no sure-fire counter to the above list, it’s been my experience and research that the following may be effective counter-measures:

• Clearly articulate the nature of your novel management approach(es), including how you arrived at them and why you believe they represent a superior technical solution. Make it clear where your approach differs from the staider ones advocated by the other members of the organization.
• Point out instances of the times the older methods you seek to displace have failed, even if the failure is only partial. You’re trying to justify a definitive deviance from what others believe is tried-and-true, and avoiding a clear-eyed review of those approaches’ shortcomings isn’t helpful, neither to you nor your organization.
• By far your most powerful influencer is this: document interim goals or measures of success, and deliver on those metrics. Nothing succeeds like success. If you can demonstrate, in no uncertain terms, that your approach is superior, then your opposition will be in a far weaker (or even impossible) position to continue their antics.

From a management science purist’s point of view, the advancement of novel business models on just their merits shouldn’t have to involve all of this strategizing and counter-measures. But, human nature being what it is, the tactics and counter-measures discussed above can be expected to be employed by the opposition and the winning PM.

And, to any real Game Theorist, winning is what it’s all about.