Family Feud Hosts Shouldn’t Be Setting Your Business Model, Either

 

A few weeks ago I was complaining about the fictional Sherriff of Nottingham influencing (or even setting) modern organizations’ business models. This week I want to point out another dubious source of such influence, that being those wretched surveys, or polls.

Family Feud is an American television game show, which pits two teams of (usually) closely-related contestants in attempts to guess the answer to questions previously posed to the studio audience, based on the most popular response, the next most popular response, and so forth. Originally hosted by British actor Richard Dawson, subsequent hosts have included Ray Combs, Louie Anderson, Richard Karn, John O’Hurley, and Steve Harvey. Perhaps one of the most iconic lines that these hosts repeated in each show is uttered after a contestant has offered up what they believe was an audience response. In order to queue the operator of the board to show the correct answer, one of these hosts would call out “Survey says…!”[i] When a contestant’s answer appeared to have absolutely no connection to anything on the board, comedy gold could be had.

Meanwhile, Back In The Project Management World…

All valid Management Information Systems (MISs) have the same basic architecture, with three sequential steps:

1. Collect Data
2. Process the data into information
3. Deliver the information.

First, data is collected, based on some sort of discipline. Accountants, for example, need to know expenses, budgets, and other details about the assets they are tracking in the General Ledger. The data is then processed into usable information based on some sort of methodology. We PM types primarily use Earned Value and Critical Path methodologies. Finally, the information is presented to decision-makers in a format that’s actually usable. Pushing a balance sheet in front of a manager who is unfamiliar with GAAP is probably not the best way to support a business-related assertion.

Unfortunately, there are a good number of so-called MISs that do not follow this basic architecture, the most common invalid alternative being what I’ve nicknamed The Poll. The Poll is basically a central database or data depository, surrounded by input/output nodes. Going under names like “Action Item Trackers” or “Issues Management Systems,” these systems not only fail to incorporate a legitimate methodology, what they collect is often not even objective data. Opinions and unquantified observations can constitute a significant portion of the “data,” rendering these holding largely subjective, and, therefore, unreliable. Indeed, a handy litmus test for whether or not an entry into a poll-structured MIS has any merit resides in the answer to the question, “is this actionable right now?” If the answer is no, then the entry is suspect.

These Polls should not be confused with systems that record events that have already occurred. Lists of accidents or infractions can be informative as long as they’re not being used to try to precisely predict future occurrences. If Plant N has had 1.3 accidents per month that led to at least one worker having to spend time away from work, that can be valuable in assessing the overall safety environment. It’s kind of useless, though, when trying to predict the exact place and time of the next such accident.

The main problem with polls is that there’s always someone with more recent, accurate, or complete “data.” In an attempt to overcome these types of systems’ inherent unreliability, the protocols for access to them are usually pretty loose. Essentially, anybody within the organization who has an “observation,” “action item,” or “issue” can sign on, and make an entry. The more advanced versions of this type of system will accept downloads from scheduling systems that incorporate the Critical Path Methodology, but that simply raises the question, if the scheduling system is the source and residence of this data in the first place, why not just view it in the original?

Then we have the problem of how all of these “issues” or “action items” are to be categorized, or binned. By date, either of occurrence, or estimated resolution? By organization? Place? Project? Severity? No matter how these entries are categorized, some impacted manager will want to see them presented differently, in line with their specific function or area of expertise. Besides, if a worker becomes aware of a problem like an unsafe condition or activity, doesn’t the immediacy of such a situation demand that they stop work and alert those responsible, rather than going to a computer terminal to do some data entry?

Finally, poll-structured MISs have the inherent problem of answering the question “So what?” Randomly submitted “issues” or “action items” will need to be assigned to someone to “correct,” or else be dismissed. Just so we’re clear, random action items getting assigned to PMs is a clear example of the dreaded scope creep, in that it’s a piece of work that is (typically) not part of the original baseline, has not been formally added via the BCP process, but nonetheless has to be accomplished. And scope creep is poisonous to projects.

So, the next time a PM is hit with some “action item” that needs addressing stemming from an information system predicated on the poll model, and flunks the actionable test, that PM should feel free to imagine its contents being spoken by a Family Feud host, after the words “Survey says…!” Because what follows is not really reliable, and well may be better suited to game shows.

[i] Retrieved from https://www.shmoop.com/quotes/survey-says.html on July 14, 2023, 21:34 MDT.