PMI®, The Movie

 

GTIM Nation knows of my theory that there are three kinds of management, each with its own goals and Management Information System (MIS) needs:

• Asset Management seeks to “maximize shareholder wealth,” and uses the General Ledger as its main information source,
• Project Management (yaay!) is all about accomplishing the customers’ goals of scope, within their constraints of cost and schedule (the famed “triple constraint,”), using Earned Value and Critical Path information, and
• Strategic Management targets greater market share, which is a company’s income divided by its industry’s total revenue, and use all of the tools from the marketing industry to advance towards that goal.

Meanwhile, Back In The Movie Industry…

I want to talk about movies that have as a key component an aspect of these types of management. First up, let’s take a look at The Accountant (2016), a film that has, yes, a forensic accountant as its central character and protagonist. But this is no ordinary accountant, no siree. This accountant is not only brilliant, but is advanced in the martial arts, is an art connoisseur, and is physically attractive. The character is, in fact, played by none other than Ben Affleck – think of Batman as your genius accountant, and you have a good grasp on this character. The Accountant is an action-adventure film, as Affleck’s character uncovers massive amounts of evil-doing and evil-doers, who, naturally, want to kill him and his loved ones. I’m going to go out on a limb here and assert that the vast majority of Certified Public Accountants do not have, as a significant component to their everyday professional lives, an aspect of immediate physical danger, or at least not one that requires advanced martial arts capabilities in order to survive day-to-day. Indeed, when it comes to likely protagonists for action-adventure movies, the typical lists include secret agents, military personnel, police officers or private detectives, mutants, aliens (Superman), and even children seeking to become famous guitar players (Coco, 2017) – but accountants, in general, do not immediately pop to mind when one considers jobs that entail ubiquitous personal danger.

The next movie sort-of deals with Strategic Management. Pretty Woman (1990) is a romantic comedy, starring Richard Gere and Julia Roberts as a “high-powered corporate raider”[i] and a prostitute, respectively. As described (rather disingenuously) in the movie, corporate raiders seek to obtain a majority share in struggling companies, then force them in to bankruptcy in order to sell off their assets, presumably for more value than was paid to obtain the majority share of stocks. But this is a rather naïve view of the purpose of “corporate raiding,” also known as a hostile takeover. If a profit could be made from simply buying out companies that appeared to be “undervalued” based on their balance sheet, then it wouldn’t happen nearly as often as it does. The key component receiving short-shrift here is market share. It’s obviously valuable, but can’t be quantified in the general ledger as an asset – otherwise, it could be taxed. By buying out a competitor and either assuming or liquidating its assets, the organization performing the takeover frees up market share. It’s why performing a hostile takeover remains attractive even in those instances where the price per share jumps up (as it almost always does) to the point that the acquiring organization takes a loss in their own books. And yet, here’s a highly prominent movie, with A-list Hollywood stars, based on a misinterpretation of basic Strategic Management goals and techniques.

Meanwhile, Back In The Project Management World…

Which brings us to Project Management. Where’s our movie? We wouldn’t even have to stretch its predicate to anything as improbable as accountants being the first line of detection for massive funding of terrorists, or “corporate raiders” performing a business model analogy to being a prostitute.  I readily concede that first-rate movies have been made about famous projects (e.g., Fat Man and Little Boy, 1989), but project management itself has not garnered a treatment analogous to the other two types of management.

Besides, PM is way more dangerous to implement than Asset Management. Don’t believe me? Watch what happens when a PMO Director mandates that all PMs are required to have filled-out and signed Work Packages prior to starting work! PM is also way more virtuous than Strategic Management. Just watch a few episodes of Mad Men, and compare those goings-on to your own PMO. I think PMI® Publishing should stop with the academic analysis stuff for a little while, and send out a call for movie scripts that highlight PM. No, I don’t want any renumeration from the Institute for this brilliant, potentially millions-making idea.

I would, however, like for my character to be played by Ben Affleck.

[i] Wikipedia contributors. (2021, May 15). Pretty Woman. In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 01:42, May 17, 2021, from https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Pretty_Woman&oldid=1023299360