Putt's Law

 

The popular Putt’s Law states,

“Technology is dominated by two types of people:  those who understand what they do not manage and those who manage what they do not understand.”

I came across Putt’s Law many years ago and was intrigued by the candidness and satirical reality pointed out by this law ever since. Even after so many years, I find the veracity of this statement still holds. In fact, it does not only apply to technology; it applies to project management as well. As a project manager, we have to deal with these two types of people in the project team and stakeholder group quite frequently. I am sure you must have met a couple of them in one occasion or another. Ironically, sometimes we are guilty of playing one of the two roles ourselves. This is inevitable. We know well that most project managers fall into the category of “Jack of all trades, master of none”. It is true that we can’t write codes better than our average programmers and we are not as experienced and knowledgeable as our subject matter experts (SME). Yet, we are bestowed upon the sacred role to manage them. The challenge is then for us to find some ways to close the gap between the managers and techies. Below are a few tips to help you achieve this.

Avoid Jargons: Avoid technical jargons in all the documentations and presentation materials. Try to ensure everyone speaks in layman’s terms in all meetings and discussions so that even your granny is able to understand. Watch out for techies who like to flaunt technical jargons around to show off their knowledge. Your duty is to put them under control.

Enforce Clarity: Whenever there is a direction passed down from the top, make sure that the instructions given are clear and specific. Avoid ambiguity at all costs. Sometimes, what appears to be resistance is often a lack of clarity in direction. Confusion arises when people below do not understand why and what people are doing at the top. Take time to explain the objectives clearly to ensure everyone follows both physically and mentally.

Improve Communication: Communication is a crucial part in project management. Identify your audience and determine what to communicate. Select the mode (e.g. email, newsletter, or meeting etc.) of communication that will give you the best results and remember to pick the right frequency. Put all these into a proper communication plan and share it out with everyone. Poor communication often leads to confusion in the team. Rectify it before it burns the bridge between the managers and techies.

Promote Openness: Adopt an open concept in the team to encourage people to ask question whenever they are in doubt or even challenge the status quo if necessary. Very often, people are just too shy to ask question for obvious reason that they are afraid to expose their ignorance. Ego breeds ignorance. Cultivate a positive environment to promote open communication in the team.

Provide Training: Whenever a project needs to involve some technical discussions that are unavoidable, it is always a good practice to provide basic training to prep the team with the knowledge required. This can be done as a separate session prior to the discussion or as a short briefing before the discussion starts. Keep the training simple and understandable without diving too deep into unnecessary technical complexities. Use more diagrams and examples instead of words to illustrate the technical concepts.