Title - How to manage projects Tags - writing draft
What’s the best way to manage projects?
That’s the question I want to answer.
But first things first: what is a project?
Recently, I met someone from HR in the office kitchen.
‘What’s your job in transformation?’ she asked. ‘I’m a Project Support Officer.’
Then we talked about how ‘project work’ is super ambigious.
Her only frame of reference was a friend who worked for National Rail as a Project Manager and her impression was that she could be working on something a big as building a new track or as small as buying a new coffee machine.
I’m not sure the latter would be in her job description but I think it’s an apt illustration of how much variation there can be in the activities of just one person in a project-based role, in one job, in one industry. Little wonder it was hard for her to grasp what I do as a PSO in transformation for the NHS. In fact, it’s quite telling that I didn’t explain it more clearly. It’s hard for me to summarise as well.
Anyway, with that in mind, let’s setlle this once and for all. I’ll ask the same question again: ‘what is project management?’
In the Middle English period, it referred to a ‘plan, draft, or scheme’ - and didn’t include the execution of it like it does today.
The word ‘manage’ emerged in the 1590’s, when it meant ‘handle, train, or direct a horse.’ In time, the meaning expanded to encompass controlling or directing any kind of administrative activity.
So we could say that project management means to ‘direct planned activity.’
The formal discipline of project management over thousands of years. In the first century BC, Vitruvius - an Ancient Roman architect, engineer, and author - wrote about the planning and execution of major construction projects.
Between 1600 and 1900, civil engineering pioneers like Christopher Wren, Thomas Telford, and Isambard Kingdom Brunel used systematic approaches to manage large-scale projects like cathedrals, bridges, and railways.
By the late 19th and early 20th century, Frederick Winslow Taylor introduced scientific management principles that informed modern project management techniques. Also in this period, Henry Gantt contributed techniques like the Gantt chart.
Today, there are professional organisations like the Project Management Institute (PMI) and Association for Project Management (APM) that have developed formal standards, bodies of knowledge, and certification programmes with the aim of advancing the discipline.
There are also a variety of techniques developed for specific purposes. PRojects IN Controlled Environments (PRINCE2), for example, was developed by the UK government as a standard for information systems projects.
There are also methods developed for specific industries. For example, Quality Improvement (QI) and Health Care Systems Engineering (HCSE) have both emerged from health care.
I’ve personally managed projects in some shape or form in multiple roles - as a digital marketing manager, freelance marketing consultant, owner/operator of a healthcare clinic, and now as a project support officer in the NHS - which has given me a broad view of the discipline.
In my current role, it’s considered innovative to learn from other NHS Trusts. I’ve never understood this. There’s a whole world out there. Why aren’t we looking at other industries? To entrepreneurs like Elon Musk? To tech startups? Why aren’t we inventing our own ways of doing things?
It’s human nature to want to use the techniques we’re familiar with, and to look for improvement inspiration in the places we understand. It’s called reasoning by analogy. Meaning, we do something because it’s like something else that was done or is being done. This type of reasoning is psychologically easier. And we need it, to some extent, to function. But it does not lead to breakthroughs. In fact, by it’s nature, reasoning by analogy can only lead in incremental improvements.
What’s the alternative?
When Elon Musk
Working in healthcare myself, one of the first questions I’ve asked myself when beginning a project - and continue to ask myself constantly - is: ‘what’s the best way to approach this?’
The first way I answered this question was to compare existing techniques like QI, PRINCE2, and HCSE to the situation I was in. Which is the best match?
I realised that this was a difficult question to answer. So I asked for help from a few colleagues. But I noticed that their answer was usually biased by their own experience, skill, and expertise. If I asked a PRINCE2-trained project manager, they were bound to suggest that I use a PRINCE2-like approach. If I asked a HCSE enthusiast, their inclinciation would be to explain how I could apply HCSE. Which makes sense because we all speak from our own perspective. And they weren’t wrong, per se, because I could have applied any of the approaches to the project I was working on at the time of the discussion and had some success.
That said, I really wanted to know: if you put all the techniques on the table, and take away all bias, and apply total objectivity, what is the best way to approach this project?
It’s clear to me now that I was asking the wrong question.
Firstly, it’s practically impossible to remove all bias and objectivity from a decision like that.
Secondly, it’s sometimes better not to use any pre-existing techniques. For example, I had been involved in a few projects that went extremely well without using a specific method. This fact planted itself in the back of my mind and made me question the applicability of techniques.
What I was really looking for was the truth. I wanted to know the fundamentals of project management that transcended all of the techniques. In other words, I wanted to know the principles. I’ve learnt that working from principles allows you to be flexible - and choose, adapt, or even invent technqiues to fit the situation, rather than adapting a project to fit the parameters of a single technique.
The late Jim Camp trained FBI negotiatiors. He described principles as ‘fundamental truths’. For example, Jim taught that ‘effective negotiators are effective decision-makers, and the only thing you can control is your own decisions.’ He saw this as a principle of negotiation. It’s a fundamental truth because, in reality, you can’t control other people’s decisions. On the flip side, he refused to teach popular negotiation concepts like ‘win-win’, ‘give and take’, and ‘compromise’, because none of them are required for a successful negotiation. Yes, they can used, but you can have a successful negotiation without them - and it’s often desirable to do so - and therefore they aren’t principles of negotiation.
So what are some principles for being effective at managing any project?
To answer this, I first have to ask, ‘how are principles defined?’
Many of the greastest thinkers of all times - including Aristotle, Johannes Gutenberg, and John Body - thought in principles.
In modern times, this is most famously embodied by Elon Musk. In 2002, Musk stated his aim to send a rocket to Mars. He visited aerospace manufacturers and discovered that rockets cost up to $65 million to purchase.
“it’s also important to reason from first principles rather than by analogy” he said in an interview (https://youtube.com/watch?v=NV3sBlRgzTI)
My aim in answering this question isn’t to arrive at an all encompassing approach to project management, but rather to better understand and communicate how to manage projects well.
But writing this has helped me discover that a principles-first approach to project management is interesting and rather rare.
Also, I don’t need to define new principles myself. Only find some that others have identified that could be useful.
In a filed so dominated by techniques - and short of principled thinking - it might be helpful to peer at other fields and domains for ideas.
Something that immediately comes to mind is the work of Robert Fritz, a composer, film maker, author, and management consultant.
Fritz is known for inventing and developing the field of ‘structural dynamics’, which is the study of how structural relationships impact the behaviour of people and organisations.
He identified three principles from the field of Physics:
- Energy moves where it is easiest to go
- The underlying structure determines where it is easiest for energy to go
- Underlying structures can be changed
Take a river, for example. In a river, water always flows where it is easiest to go. The easiest place to go - the path of least resistance - is determined by the structure of the river bed. But we can change the structure of the river bed and, in doing so, change the behaviour of the water.
Similarly, these principles can explain human behaviour. Like a river - and all of nature - we hold energy. Our energy always follows the path of least resistance, which is determined by the structures in our lives. We can change our behaviour by changing our structures.
It’s even true for organisations, which are collections of people working together in an organised way, to achieve a common purpose.
What is a structure?
According to Robert Fritz, it’s an entity that is undivided, complete, and total. A car is a structure. So is a rocking chair. The differences in their structure mean that a car works very differently than a rocking chair. A human body is a structure as well. And it, too, works and behaves differently from cars and rocking chairs.
There are two categories of structure: advancing and oscillating.
Advancing structures produce consistent forward movement. Each movement builds on the next. A car is an example of an advancing structure. It can move from location A to location B. It can then move from location B to location C.
Oscillating structures exhibit a one step forward, one step backward pattern where movement in one direction is followed by movement in the opposite direction. A rocking chair is an example of an oscillating structure. It moves forward, then backward, then forward, then backward. That’s its nature.
People and organisations can consist of advancing structures, oscillating structures, or a combination of both