Getting Tired Of Playing The Role Of Cassandra?

 

I don’t know what it is about Project Controls Specialists – the data gatherers, processors, and deliverers of information in the PM world – that their reports are often held in lower regard than, say, the data from the action item listing. It’s strangely reminiscent of the character of Cassandra, from Greek mythology. She received her prophetic capabilities from the god Apollo, in exchange for agreeing to have sex with him; however, she refused him after gaining her prophetic ability. Since Apollo couldn’t take back the gift, he cursed her by arranging for her to never be believed, even though she was always right (funny how she failed to foresee that particular outcome stemming from her refusal). She correctly predicted the fall of Troy, even down to the use of the Trojan Horse, and also knew beforehand the fates of key characters from The Iliad¹. However, true to the curse, nobody believed her.

On a mildly less epic scale, Project Controls Analysts (particularly the ones who read this blog, calculate their Estimates at Completion and eschew risk management techniques) are often noted for their ability to precisely call out which project tasks are doing well, but also which ones are in trouble, and are likely to finish over budget or late. Even though they are almost always provably accurate, the other members of the project team, customers’ reps, or organization’s execs will tend to not believe them until well after it’s too late to circumvent the unfolding disaster. I believe there are several reasons for this, including the idea that there’s always time to reverse the fortunes of poorly-performing tasks, the accountant’s take is always more accurate, or even that young priestesses inhaling volcanic fumes at Delphi provide better insights. I continue to be amazed that, each time I’m asked to perform a forensic analysis on a project that experienced a significant overrun or delay, but nobody seemed to know about the causal factors until it was too late to correct, the Earned Value Management System had correctly predicted which tasks were in trouble, had pegged the range of overrun/delay to within ten points, and had done so months in advance. Every. Single. Time.

As the fates would have it (get it?), I’m confident I have a solution to this ancient curse that the cost/schedule performance assessors have borne since the advent of the Cost/Schedule Control System Criterion, and it does not involve laying siege to the other business analysts’ walled cities for a decade. It is this: the Project Controls Analysts must provide their PMs with the information the PM wants, and in the format they want to see it. Nothing more, nothing less. Here’s why I’m confident this tactic will work.

Back during the days of the aforementioned Cost/Schedule Control Systems Criterion, or C/SCSC, the use of Critical Path and, specifically, Earned Value techniques was a requirement of the organizations performing major project work for the United States Department of Defense. All of those organizations had to “do” Project Management, and in a fairly particular way. Those who performed the role of collecting, processing, and delivering PM information didn’t have to justify anything – the performance of their roles was a condition of the contract. However, in those arenas where doing PM was not required, many organizations (foolishly, in my opinion) took advantage of the opportunity to cut some PM administrative costs, and downsized (or even eliminated) their Project Controls staff, leading into a cycle that repeats the following steps:

• A major project experiences a significant overrun.
• The organization has a re-dedication to PM principals in general, and Cost/Schedule Performance Systems in particular.
• These systems perform as expected, notifying upper management of where completion-threatening problems arise, and allowing them to be avoided.
• As months go by without another major overrun, management begins to question the need for the PM Administrative budget, at the same time as the unenlightened PMs begin to express frustration with having to provide status updates every reporting period.
• The budgets for the EVMS and CPM experts get cut, and those systems cease reporting.
• The organization experiences another major overrun, and the cycle begins again.

In order to disrupt this cycle, the head of the Project Controls organization needs only to supply their PMs with what the PMs want to see. Not only will this tend to keep their organizational costs low, but those PMs who eschew the cost/schedule performance information will have a notably higher incidence of failure, and will drop out of the pool for future project assignments. Those who believe the prophesies take advantage of this irreplaceable information stream will have a higher success rate, and will either continue to receive the preferred projects being brought in, or will be promoted into the higher levels of management where they can continue supporting the Earned Value and Critical Path folks. It’s a simple survival of the fittest, but it won’t work if the EVM/CPM-owning organization attempts to mandate the use of those tools. The PMs are the customers of these organizations, and won’t take kindly to an attitude of having to be educated on how to do their jobs.

In short, successful PMs already know who they should listen to. Unsuccessful ones will have epic poems written about the people they should have heeded.

1. Wikipedia contributors. "Cassandra." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 17 Nov. 2018.