Project management cautionary tales

Leadership

George Freeman Thought Leader | Author | Architect| Florida, United States

Generationally passed down through oral tradition and literature, the cautionary tales of old provided the attentive an early warning system, endowing an individual or collective the means to assess the threat level of something unknown. A lifesaving medium when the whole of technology presented itself through the hands of a craftsman and the written word was bound to but a few.

Yet here we are in the modern-day, sending our best and brightest into the domain of project management with few, if any, passed-down cautionary tales to guide them as they traverse seemingly unknown territories.

What cautionary tale-based wisdom can you offer our nextGen project managers?

What is a cautionary tale:
[1] A thing, place, or act is said to be dangerous.
[2] The central character then goes on to disregard the warning.
[3] The person who ignored the warning faces negative consequences for their actions.

Posted: Jul 24, 2024 4:42 PM

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Thomas Walenta Global Project Economy Expert Hackenheim, Germany

Great initiative, George.

Why only share dangerous stories?

Some stories provide good guidance without scaring people first.

Here is a tale:

An illustrative example of a changing view on success is the German tale of ‘Hans in Luck’ by the Brothers Grimm (1886): In a nutshell, Hans received a chunk of gold for seven years of services and intended to return to his mother’s home with the price (initial success criteria). During the journey, he encounters several challenges, which he solves by exchanging the gold with an ox, the ox with a horse, the horse with a pig, and so on, until he is left with a millstone, which he finally throws away and returns to his mother’s home without a gift. His Mother is satisfied, he is satisfied, even his trade partners along the way home are, and the coming home is deemed by all as successful.

Posted: Jul 25, 2024 4:14 AM

Kiron Bondale Retired | Mentor| Retired Welland, Ontario, Canada

George -

if you are looking for apropos fables, I'll use Aesop's tale of the ant and the grasshopper as a cautionary tale for PMs who squander contingency reserves and schedule buffers needlessly only to find themselves running short at a later point in time when things get tough.

Kiron

Posted: Jul 25, 2024 7:48 AM

George Freeman Thought Leader | Author | Architect| Florida, United States

Using existing cautionary/wisdom tales and applying them to project management also works, although I was hoping for custom tales tailored to project management.

Here’s a “short tale” example, one that I have used in the past:

*** Bringing a project in for a landing demands a “soul count” when one builds a rocket ship.

The insight for this tale is as follows:

[1] Building a rocket ship is dangerous.

[2] The project manager ignores the warning and purposely over-delivers to show prowess.

[3] The PM faces the negative consequence of being unable to land the deliverable as the rocket ship has no landing gear; hence, the need to call the “project control tower” with the count of souls onboard the project, as a crash landing appears imminent.

The message is hopefully one that sticks with the project manager for their career. Or stated differently: Learn from George Freeman’s mistakes.

Posted: Jul 25, 2024 11:12 AM

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Project management cautionary tales

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