Visualizing the Past, Viewing the Future

 

I find it fascinating how often one of the most basic distinctions in project management information systems is overlooked, or, even worse, blurred into near-meaninglessness. I’m talking about the difference between feedback and feed-forward management information systems (MISs).

For those of you who are (understandably) coming to this topic for the first time, feedback systems report on what has occurred, based on verifiable information. The general ledger is wholly predicated on the feedback concept, as are several other systems. Advantages to feedback systems include:

·         The data is (or ought to be) accurate, with little or no subjectivity present.

·         …and, well, that’s about it.

Here are the drawbacks to feedback systems:

·         Depending on how long it takes to gather the data, process it into information, and get it to the decision-makers, the information may become so dated as to become marginally useful.

·         There’s also the problem of the point of view of those interpreting the data. Dots connected by one manager into some sort of causality loop may strike another as purely coincidental.

Then there’s the feed-forward system. Such systems seek to anticipate the future, such as the use of polls preceding an election. The advantages of such systems include:

·         Obviously, a management information system that can accurately predict the future is pure gold,

·         …leading to its desirability.

These very advantages lead directly to the feed-forward systems’ drawbacks, including:

·         Most such systems depend on subjective data to such an extent that they are little better than reading tea leaves, or other forms of divination.

·         But, since they are so desirable, promoters of unproven techniques are drawn to design them in droves.

Of course, the very nature of experience (and the function of the hippocampus, if you want to get technical) is to assess facts and past events, organize them into some sort of structure, and flip that structure forward, across the Time Now line in order to derive a useful anticipation of how the future will unfold. While this little thought exercise may be part and parcel of carrying on our lives, it tends to fail as a repeatable, teachable tactic in management science. The future simply cannot be quantified, which is why the best managers are the ones who can think on the balls of their feet, adapting to new and unforeseen circumstances with (mostly) appropriate responses. PMs who stick to their plans, even in the face of dramatically changed circumstances, are usually the ones behind the projects that end in failure, if not disaster.

Which brings us back to the types of information systems that PMs like to use to learn about what’s going on in their projects. Both earned value and critical path methodologies have a remarkable capacity for predicting future performance, based on the reliable aspects of feedback systems. EVM and CPM, when set up correctly, are capable of consistently predicting final project costs and durations within ten points, an accuracy rate that can only be dreamed of by purveyors of the general ledger, or risk analysis tools, for that matter. Since they are predicated on observed, quantified past performance, such systems have the advantages of both the feedback and feed-forward types, without their drawbacks, which is probably the main reason why accountants and risk managers tend to have a natural resentment of project controls analyst. I could possibly contribute to the lessening of this resentment, if I would just stop making fun of accountants and risk managers in this blog

Nahhh….