Munchkin Project Management

 

Since it looks as though this will be my last blog for February, and ProjectManagement.com’s theme for February is creativity, I thought I’d use the cover of “creativity” to address a topic that, I’m confident, has gone unaddressed by hundreds of PM-centric writers over decades of publications, with articles and blogs running into the tens of thousands: Did the Munchkins from The Wizard of Oz do Project Management? If so, were they any good at it? Does an evaluation of Munchkin PM offer up some insights to us on this side of Oz?

I think we can safely assume that the Munchkins did do Project Management. How do I know? Check the YouTube® clips from when Dorothy arrives in Oz, specifically near the main square of the Munchkins’ village. There are several buildings (presumably houses, but none of them have signs or features that would indicate one way or the other), an impressive fountain, an extremely flat cobblestone pavement, and, of course, the Yellow Brick Road. In addition, the visible buildings appear to be in an architectural style consistent with what one would find in an 18^th century English town in the countryside that has been hit with an excess charm bomb (in the megaton range), with a seizure-inducing color-enhancement feature. If the Munchkins were ducking in and out of caves, that would be one thing. But, given that their village is presented the way it is, it’s inescapable: those civil engineering artifacts didn’t create themselves. The Munchkins clearly “did” Project Management.

Were they any good at it? I think that, in approaching this question, we must be careful about our basis of comparison. GTIM Nation members know that among my favorite axioms is “All things fail by irrelevant comparisons.” We have no way of knowing what the Munchkins’ cost or schedule baselines were, so we’re left with comparing their buildings and infrastructure to the other examples within The Wizard of Oz. These include:

• The Emerald City. This would probably be an unfair comparison, given that the Emerald City is presented as the zenith of architecture and building expertise in all of Oz, and the Munchkins’ village is just a place in the countryside.
• The Wicked Witch’s Castle. A foreboding place, it is, nevertheless, an impressive piece of construction. Garrisoned by what appears to be around twenty soldiers, it looks like it could withstand a prolonged assault by thousands. We’re not told if the Wicked Witch of the West had it built herself, or if she inherited it, or how she came to be in possession of it, but I think it’s a safe bet that the winning contractor for this project wasn’t headquartered in the Munchkins’ village, which leaves us with…
• …Dorothy’s house. Granted it’s somewhat worse for wear for having been scooped up by a tornado and flung who-knows-how-far; but, having been dropped on the Wicked Witch of the East while she was in the town square of the Munchkins’ village, it does provide a good opportunity for comparative architecture and building technique analysis. The house itself is a simple plank-on-frame affair, made entirely of wood. It is in remarkable shape for having been scooped up by a tornado and dropped who-knows-how-far, but that’s kind of the point. The Munchkins’ houses/buildings look like they are made of polished stone, which would tend to make them impervious to random cyclones running over them.

Based on the only valid comparison left to us, that of comparing the level of building expertise on display between the Munchkins’ village and Dorothy’s house, one would have to conclude advantage: Munchkins, meaning that they not only “did” Project Management, they did it well, at least in comparison to Kansas-based construction project contractors of the same vintage.

Which leads us to the last of my posed questions, is there anything we can learn from Munchkin PM? Before legions of GTIM Nation wise-guys enter comments to the effect “Michael, you know that those Munchkin buildings you’re going on and on about are really just painted backdrops, right?”, I want to focus on things that didn’t happen when Dorothy arrived on the project site in Munchkin Land. My thinking is that, had the Munchkins retained an “advanced” capability in one of the PM disciplines that is mistaken for insightful PM, say, risk management (veteran GTIM Nation members totally saw this coming), then the scene immediately after Dorothy emerges from the dropped house would have unfolded in a dramatically different fashion. Consider that no risk analyst in the universe can possibly restrain himself from pointing out that, had they documented a specific “risk event,” with odds of occurrence and impact to the cost, scope, and schedule baselines thoroughly analyzed, and that event were to actually take place, that they actually predicted as such. It’s simply not in their capacity from engaging in the rarely-encountered-but-completely- documented “I told you so.”

But the Wicked Witch of the East had clearly been antagonizing the Munchkins for some time, since they broke out into an obviously rehearsed song of joy on the occasion of her being squished by Dorothy’s house. It follows that, had any Munchkin risk manager performed an analysis of any of their considerable public works projects, that one of the identified risks would have to be “Wicked Witch of the East arrives, antagonizes the Project Team, leading them to flee the job site, leading to X impact on schedule.” And, if such a risk analysis did actually exist, with the recommended work-around being “Wait for a house from a completely different place to drop on her head,” then I would become the risk managers’ biggest fan. Interestingly, none of that happened.

As it is, I think we can conclude the following:

• The Munchkins did do Project Management,
• They were good at it, and…
• Even they knew that risk management was a waste of time.