Regarding Tom's distrust of "silver bullets," I contend that most problems faced by those attemting to deliver projects with speed and reliability can be linked by strings of cause-and-effect relationships. If the problem space is understood in these terms, then a small number of actionable root causes can be identified and addressed.
If the cause-and-effect system is sufficiently understood, different pieces of a project management solution can be built to address these various roots, and therefore have beneficial impact on higher branches in the logical tree. When analyzing the resultant set of actions, and their anticipated effects in the context of the original system's logic, potential conflicts among those actions can also be identified with some level of ease, allowing additional pieces of a more complete solution to arise. The result of doing this with minimal preconceived notions will be a set of coherent and consistent processes and practices.
It may not be a "silver bullet," per se, but the resulting collection of processes and practices could be seen as the shot in a "silver shotgun shell."
But more important than the type of ammunition is the target at which it is aimed -- the core problems, dilemmas, and root causes that perpetuate the problems. The basic problems faced by project environments, no matter what industry, are surprisingly common. If the problems are so common, then the solution can, at its core, be common for these otherwise disparate environments.
The reason I initiated this thread is to test the only approach to project management that I am aware of that was developed with a clean sheet of paper and a list of PM problems subjected to such a logical analysis. So far, this "silver shotgun shell" can be demonstrated to deal with any problem I've come across related to project speed and reliability.
(Other than, perhaps, inextricable personal animosity among team members, but then again, there are other logical solutions for those that belong in the toolkit of a skilled general management -- not just project management. Although, as I think about it some more, even those personal animosities probably have their roots in past conflicts related to project non-performance, so an effective approach to PM could prevent such issues in the future.)
What I'm looking for are sufficiently challenging problems to match up against Critical Chain-based project management.
How's that for a bit of arrogance?
;-)
