Does The PM Really Want To Solve The Problem?

 

Any discussion of problem solving/wicked problems (ProjectManagement.com’s theme for June) should probably proceed from a very basic question: does the Project Team, particularly its PM, really want the problem solved? Of course, in PM space, the central “problem” is how to bring in the properly-executed scope on-time, on-budget, preferably in such a way that the customer would be willing (if not eager) to do business with the organization again. I’ve already spent considerable pixel ink exposing that our friends, the Accountants, do not necessarily share the belief that this is the central problem facing management, preferring instead to spend their efforts “maximizing shareholder wealth.” Indeed, of the four possible combinations of successful project/maximized fee, the Asset Managers’ preferences being at odds with the PM World becomes clear in the following payoff grid:

Since everyone’s on the same page in Scenarios B and C, I’ll jump straight to A and D. Scenario A isn’t as anomalous as it appears. Customer-recognized contingency events, or events of force majeure can easily make it impossible to complete a given project under the terms of its original cost and schedule baseline, but the customer still needs the final product/service. Any time an Over-Target Baseline (OTB) request is approved by the customer, though, one would have to believe that at least some level of consternation remains – unless, of course, you’re an Asset Manager, taught that the point of all management is to maximize shareholder wealth, and the contract in question is a Cost-Plus Percentage Fee. Based on their training, I would have to believe that this scenario is tolerable, if not acceptable to our friends, the Asset Managers.

Conversely, consider a relatively young organization that puts in a bid for some project work in a field that the company has targeted for growth. The Request for Proposal (RFP) stipulated a Firm Fixed Price (FFP) contract, and the organization, being new to this type of work, squeezes the Basis of Estimate (BoE) until it approaches the density of depleted uranium. The proposal team is elated when the contract is awarded to them, and most of their members become the core of the Project Team. They complete the work on-time, on-budget, down to the very dime. The Project Team is elated, the organization has attained a foothold in a targeted industry, has added the talent necessary to pursue more work in the field, and everyone attending the end-of-project celebration is in a good mood.

Well, almost everyone. That fellow in the corner, in the suspenders and bow tie, peering out at the Project Team members like he has an axe to grind? That’s the head of Finance and Accounting, who is well aware that, for FFP contracts, the difference between the final costs and the total project value is pure profit, and the organization didn’t get any. Those other benefits don’t appear on his Profit-and-Loss sheet, so he’s, well, unhappy.

There’s another dynamic going on in the whole does-everyone-really-want-the-problem-solved world, and for that I will turn to my favorite Organizational Behavior and Performance analysis structure, the Maccoby Archetypes. The absolutely brilliant Michael Maccoby theorized that there are four basic types of people in the organization:

• The Company Man tends to assume the persona of the team around him.
• The Craftsman really doesn’t care about for whom he works, but does care deeply about the quality of his output.
• The Jungle Fighter gets ahead by calumny and cloak-and-dagger tactics, and does not have the best interest of the organization in his heart.
• The Gamesman sees his compensation not as food on the table or roof over his head, but as tokens in some elaborate game. This archetype tends to be the most successful due to a combination of knowing the rules to the “game” better than others, combined with an enhanced willingness to take risks[i].

Now let’s consider the whole problem solving/wicked problem question with these archetypes in mind. The Gamesman would be the odds-on favorite for finding the optimal solution to a wicked problem, since he’s the type most likely to think unconventionally, and to take risks to pursue a non-template technical approach. Similarly, the Craftsman, caring deeply about the actual outcome of his energies, will readily recognize when a conventional approach will not deliver a satisfactory outcome, and will know when to abandon it.

But the Company Man? He’s going to be terrified of venturing outside of the norms set up by the macro-organization. He’d rather be chasing the wrong technical agenda while demonstrably within company procedures than actually right and outside the approved template. As for the Jungle Fighter, they live for the internal conflict generated by a Project Team confronted by a wicked problem. It gives them much more space to maneuver in those smoke-filled rooms.

Make no mistake: if your PMO is made up of more than a dozen PMs, the odds that they are all Gamesmen or Craftsmen is extremely small. Which brings me back to my original question: are you sure the PM even wants to solve the problem?

[i] Maccoby, Michael. The Gamesman: The New Corporate Leaders. New York: Simon and Schuster,1976.