My absolute favorite scene from the movie Back to School (1986) is where Rodney Dangerfield’s character, accompanying his son in a management class, confronts the snooty business professor who has just proposed a class project where they will set up a new manufacturing company. The professor has just listed some line items that will go into their basis of estimate, when Dangerfield’s character (Thornton Melon) interjects.
Thornton Melon: Oh, you left out a bunch of stuff.
Dr. Phillip Barbay: Oh really? Like what for instance?
Thornton Melon: First of all you're going to have to grease the local politicians for the sudden zoning problems that always come up. Then there's the kickbacks to the carpenters, and if you plan on using any cement in this building I'm sure the teamsters would like to have a little chat with ya, and that'll cost ya. Oh and don't forget a little something for the building inspectors. Then there's long term costs such as waste disposal. I don't know if you're familiar with who runs that business but I assure you it's not the boy scouts.
Dr. Phillip Barbay: That will be quite enough, Mr. Melon! Maybe bribes, kickbacks and Mafia payoffs are how YOU do business! But they are NOT part of the legitimate business world! And they are certainly not part of anything I am doing in this class. Do I make myself clear, Mr. Melon![i]
I think this exchange encapsulates perfectly the divide between the academic view of how business is done and its real-world counterparts, albeit in extremis. Neither the self-made successful businessman nor the Ph.D. professor can understand where the other is coming from, and it’s apparent that each holds the other as having an inferior grasp of the management model implications that their view carries.
Meanwhile, Back In The Project Management World…
Do not believe for an instant, GTIM Nation, that a similar divide does not exist in the PM World. The analogy here, though, is not one of academia versus real-world realpolitik implications, but rather one of how to actually execute the mores of Project Management. In other words, the gulf we PM-types must deal with, but rarely recognize for its importance, can be summed up in just two words: Implementation Strategy.
It’s kind of ironic, really. When I was in graduate school, the courses I believed to be the most crucial, the “hardest,” were things like statistics, finance, accounting, and business law. Among the courses I thought were – necessary, sure, but not among the “hard” disciplines, was Organizational Behavior and Performance. But this is the exact arena where so many Project Management Offices go to suffer ignominious defeat, and for one simple reason: you cannot advance a capability maturity (like PM) by leveraging organizational power. You can’t make someone get better at something in the management world.
We PM Types tend to be confident in our grasp of the basics of the business model we seek to introduce or modify. We are fluent in things like how to set up a Work Breakdown Structure, fill out a Work Package, set a Cost or Schedule Baseline, etc., etc. That’s not the issue. The problem lies in how to get the rest of the organization to change the way they do things in order to accommodate such modifications. And the assumption that, once the company’s executives have bought into your suggestions for advancing PM capabilities, the rank-and-file will simply fall in line and execute your instructions (because it’s now in official company policy, don’t you know) is not only naïve, it’s absolutely fatal to your capability advancement agenda. A separate implementation strategy, exactly matched to the technical approach, must be developed, one that is both clearly articulatable and practically workable.
Sadly, the so-called implementation strategy that I have seen attempted over and over, and has failed over and over, almost always involves the following steps:
- “Experts” interview execs, and hear their frustrations over the poor cost/schedule performance of the projects in their portfolios.
- They then recommend (or perform themselves) hiring of estimators, project controls specialists, and more PM-oriented personnel.
- Estimating, Earned Value, and Critical Path software packages are purchased and installed, and personnel trained in their use.
- Policy/procedure documents are created or modified to accommodate the new approach, with high-level execs signing off on them.
- Meetings are held, where the new PM initiative is presented, with mid-level management offering tepid endorsement.
- A specific date is set for when the new approach is to go into effect. That date comes, and goes, and…
…nothing really changes. For the next few months, a form of Project Review meetings are held, but the cost/schedule performance information is highly uneven, even when it’s available. Enthusiasm wanes as PMs find excuses for their work to be exempted from the requirements, and those who can’t weasel out find other reasons for less-than-full compliance. The value (or even relevance) of the Project Reviews weakens, the portfolio sees no real change in performance, and the PMO Director becomes increasingly frustrated. When the end comes, they will blame a “lack of willingness to change” or insufficient support from the executives for what has to be accurately described as an utterly unworkable implementation strategy.
So, if Thorton Melon were to be present at the post mortem for the PMO, he might blurt out “Oh, you left out, not a bunch of stuff, but just two words: implementation strategy.”
[i] Retrieved from on https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0090685/quotes/, on September 15, 2025, 21:15 MDT.
