Project Management disasters are often compared to train wrecks, mostly, I would imagine, because of their commonalities: the horrific results are often foreseeable, could have been avoided with some common sense, they have significant consequences, and they’re almost inevitable, in that, as long as there are trains running and projects to be managed, there will be train wrecks and massive overruns and delays. To carry this metaphor a bit further, what should one do if they were to find themselves in a passenger car on a train that was headed off of the rails, or on a project that was headed for a disastrous end?
I’ve had this type of conversation often with a brilliant friend and colleague – I’ll call him Doug, ‘cuz that’s his name – and from these discussions it appears that there are basically three alternatives:
- Rush to the locomotive, and try to convince the engineer to switch tracks or stop the train,
- Rush to the caboose (do they even have those anymore?), line up some pillows or padding against the fore bulkhead, and brace for impact, or
- Exit the train (Impossible, you say? I’ll point you to the opening scene in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, where a teenaged Indiana Jones does just that).
A fourth alternative, to do nothing and hope for the best, was excluded from our discussions for not being viable, even though I’m sure a plurality (if not majority) of people choose it.
Of course, many factors can and will influence both the choice of alternative and its timing, including:
- the proximity in time and space to the actual crash,
- the perceived receptiveness of upper management to entertaining strongly urged suggestions to modifying or abandoning the current course of action,
- the ability to remain within the organization while minimizing the personal impact of a project disaster,
- and the availability of workable exit strategies.
Sometimes the alternative selection and timing is obvious. If the project is headed for a terrible end, in the near-term, management is impervious to entreaties to change their course of action, there is no place within the macro-organization to insulate you from the project disaster’s consequences, and another perfectly acceptable position has been offered to you, the choice (exit) and timing (now) is pretty clear. More often, though, to the aware PM-type, the clues that things are going to go south in a big way present themselves much earlier, if more subtly.
It's been my experience that, much of the time, the primary determiner for which alternative to choose has to do with the perception of how receptive the engineer would be to taking advice or technical direction from someone perceived to have a lesser expertise in train driving. In some cases, access to the train’s engineer highly restricted, if not impossible. But these characteristics in and of themselves provide clues. If upper management is impervious to Project Team members’ urgings to update or abandon the technical agenda, it’s typically an indicator that the placement of the personnel within the PMO isn’t based on merit. Weak managers, who’ve attained their senior-level positions within the PMO based on something other than capability, are terrified of being challenged, especially and particularly when it comes to setting the technical agenda. I wrote one of my PMNetwork columns (The Variance Threshold) about an organization that was so entrenched in their ossified business model that an underground newsletter aping the format of the official company one was published, mocking the entire executive suite for their absolute refusal to listen to employees’ inputs or feedback. When the conductor/engineer is so insulated from the people on the rest of the train that he can’t even hear their warnings about the upcoming crash, forget about trying to get to the caboose to ride it out. Get off the train. Alternatively, if the PMO execs aren’t weak, it might be worth your while to get to them and describe, in objective terms (see last week’s blog), the nature of the problem, why it may have gone unnoticed thus far, and what to do about it. If they listen, you and the rest of the Team win. If they don’t, well, that’s another clue for you.
Now, I can hear GTIM Nation saying “Michael, where do the risk managers (no initial caps) fit into this over-extended analogy?” I’m glad y’all asked. The risk managers would be one of those guys back at the control center, placing a call to the engineer, so.
“There’s an 18.3 % chance you will have a crash.”
“Should I slow down?”
“I didn’t say that. You have a schedule to keep.”
“So, what am I supposed to do with that little estimate?”
“Do with it what you will. It came from a super computer running a kajillion Monte Carlo simulations, taking into account…”
“But you’re not recommending any specific course of action?”
“Right, but you’re not listening to the amount of really sophisticated stuff that went into…”
(Hangs up.)
In this way, the risk managers (no initial caps) can lay claim to some level of accuracy when it comes to predicting the future. If the wreck occurs, they can say that they warned as such. If it doesn’t happen, they can say that they never claimed that it would probably happen, just an 18.3% chance. Neat.
Ultimately, of course, it’s up to you to know if, upon attaining a high level of confidence that a wreck is in your short-to-mid-term future, you want to attempt to change the course of the train, insulate yourself from the effects of the wreck, or get off. Just keep in mind, if you do have such confidence that it’s going to happen, staying put and hoping is probably not the optimal approach.
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