Metaphors, Projects and Project Management

Luis

I know what a metaphor is but thanks for the reminder :-)

RK

Hi Luis,

In medium to large sized projects, I use them. Smaller ones, sometimes.

Metaphors serve a purpose, and when well used/applied they help converge stakeholders towards common goals, provides a base for internal branding (sometimes it even becomes an official thing) and it provides a sense of belonging/ownership to everyone gravitating around it.

Luis,

I think metaphors get used more to describe the “state of” or “characteristic of” a project. For instance:

- A Skunkworks project that is now ready for the smell test.
- A Rocketship project that you are going to have a hard time landing.
- Critical Mass (variant meaning), a project that is about to implode under its own weight.

Other ideas?

Metaphors for project names were commonly used by my last client for confidential initiatives. The metaphor acted almost as an inside joke for those who "needed to know".

Kiron

Dear Kiron
Thank you for participating in this reflection and for your opinion

In your opinion, can metaphors also be used for other purposes?

Sure - another example would be to help someone understand a complex concept in a way that they can better appreciate it or to make a topic matter to a given stakeholder.

Kiron

I'm not sure I understand the question.

If we're talking about using obtuse names for our projects, then yes, I've done it. It depends on the degree of operational security the project needs. Sometimes we want everyone to know what we're working on, but on other projects are on a need-to-know basis only.

If we're talking about using metaphors to describe a project's characteristics, then I've done that.

Luis,

Similar to George, my use of metaphors is more in the context of describing a state or an approach to convince stakeholders of the next most appropriate actions.
I use "building a house" as well as "preparing a meal" metaphors as they are easy to understand.