The Gig Economy Comes For The PM Roller Coaster

 

Since the very definition of Project Management involves a unique or novel product or service, the appropriate level of demand for PM services is often highly variable, even in those organizations with projects making up a strong majority of their contract backlogs. This variability is in strong contrasts with the level of demand for our friends, the accountants, due to the fact that no company can function without paying taxes or meeting payroll, among the myriad other general ledger functions performed by them. The demand for general ledger expertise pretty much parallels the overall size of the organization in a given business sector, with its boundaries being not hard to ascertain. If the books don’t balance, or the profit-and-loss statement contains clear errors, or the taxman reviewing the organization’s returns demands an immediate audit, it’s safe to say the company needs more accounting talent, immediately. If the company’s overhead rates are so high that it’s no longer competitive, and none of the lower-boundary symptoms have manifested, it might be a good idea to cut back on the Accounting Department.

For we PM-Types the upper and lower boundaries are not as clear, and their placements are susceptible to the subjectivity that accompanies managerial ignorance and business model pathologies. Consider the following graph:

1. This is where most Project-oriented organizations begin, since they tend to hire the engineers, scientists, programmers, etc. who perform the actual project work, with or without guidance. This level of PM capability is color coded light red, to indicate that it’s not to be considered functional.
2. Step B occurs when a senior-level manager recognizes the need for a more formal, robust PM capability, a major project overrun has occurred, or (more often, in my experience) the organization is pursuing (or actually wins) a contract for work that stipulates, if not a more advanced PM maturity, at least the capability of producing the artifacts consistent with such an ability (e.g., Gantt Charts, Cost Performance Reports [Format 1], etc.). Demand for PM talent escalates and, as it is collected, the organization begins to improve its PM aptitude. This Step level is color coded yellow, to indicate a marginal functionality.
3. This Step indicates a middling-to-good level of competence, as indicated by the generation of useful, insightful information streams showing portfolio-wide cost and schedule performance in addition to meeting external PM-centric requirements. Another, critical indication of arriving in this zone: the number of Projects coming in late or overrunning drops precipitously. Great news, right? Maybe. Recall the business service axiom, Quality, Affordability, Availability – pick any two. This level of PM capability isn’t cheap, making it a likely target for non-PM-types, whenever a discussion of how to cut costs comes up. They will be aided even by some within the organization’s PM ranks, who eschew the basics of Critical Path and Earned Value Management, and will point to the absence of Project trouble as Exhibit A behind the argument that that level of PM expertise is overkill.
4. Don't let it be forgot
   That once there was a spot
   For one brief shining moment that was known
   As Camelot[i].
5. Now, as elements of this so-called advanced PM capability begin to include more expensive but nevertheless useless techniques (cough, risk management [no initial caps], cough), the more poorly-performing PMs will tire of having their lack of performance exposed by the system, and will exert considerable effort into opting out, leading to the inversion of the trajectory at Step E. Since the organization as a whole has been performing well, a few renegades can escape notice.
6. As the trickle of Projects opting out of the Project Management Information Systems becomes a torrent (Step F), the system maturity slope plummets towards highly uneven implementation, followed closely by…

1. We’re back at Step A, awaiting a major Project catastrophe.

The reason I referred to this cycle in the title as a roller coaster has to do with the timing and magnitude of the events and PMO responses. The figure shows a nice sine wave-style curve, but that’s only for illustration. In real life, the timing of the events and amplitude of the responses are highly variable, some Steps coming in bunches, others drawn out over quarters, or even years.

This is where the gig economy comes into play. While personnel from other fields can often count on a steady-state of demand for their services, we PM types enjoy no such consistency. Depending on where the organization is in the cycle’s Steps above, demand for PM talent can either be intensely high or depressingly low, the precise type of business cycle that makes offering talent in the field a rather excellent fit for a variable supply structure. Are there strategies available to the PMO to even out the extremes of this curve? Sure, and probably the best one is…

Whoa, look at that! Out of pixel ink for this week. Tune in next week for the thrilling conclusion to The Gig Economy Comes For The PM

[i] Retrieved from https://www.allmusicals.com/lyrics/camelot/finaleultimocamelotreprise.htm on August 14, 2022, 17:40 MDT.