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Old 04-09-2013, 02:00 PM
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Why doesn’t project management make people’s heart sing?

One of my favorite quotes from the late Steve Jobs is the following:

“A lot of people in our industry haven’t had very diverse experiences,” Steve Jobs is quoted as saying. “So they don’t have enough dots to connect, and they end up with very linear solutions.” Bill Gates, he suggested, would be “a broader guy if he had dropped acid once or gone off to an ashram when he was younger"

While I won't recommend dropping acid and leaving everything behind and going off to an ashram, I would argue that as a project manager working in a corporate environment, I do agree the sentiment that we take a much too linear "mindset" to solving project problems. I place the work mindset here in quotes, because it isn't so much that we actually solve project problems in a linear way (in fact I'd argue that many of us are under pressure to solve things and usually end up taking a quite random approach!), but that we outline our solutions to them in a linear manner. Just look at all the frameworks and methods that have been developed out there and there will be no mistaking this linear domination. Agile is no different, they just break the linear process down to more manageable chunks and emphasize the people and working (usually software) products more than the process and documentation.

Furthermore, I'd contend that this linear domination of thinking is further hampered by the compartmentalized manner in which the solutions are thought through. Much of this is the fault on an education system that is dominated by separating knowledge areas into separate and distinct categories with little to no teaching of how they all work as a synthesized whole.

It is no wonder that we take this approach to the way we structure organizations and teams as well as management solutions and frameworks and accounts for the silos and governance practices that never really maps to how people interact, collaborate and come up with solutions. It also prevents us from taking a more synthesized holistic view of our project solutions.

I think what is needed is a much more interdisciplinary and humanistic approach so as to create in the words of the late Steve Jobs again, a management approach "married with liberal arts, married with humanities, that yields the results that make our hearts sing."

What do you think? Have your experienced similar problems and what solutions have you found?

***This topic was inspired by a post on my site, so feel free to visit the link below for more details: [url]http://goo.gl/jbGqS[/url]
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Old 04-18-2013, 11:24 PM
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Yes it is true a person in the field of project management experienced same problems but what can we do. I think it's natural process.
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Old 04-20-2013, 04:57 AM
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True.....it's plain human tendency to take matters into your own hands and solve things our way. Agile however gives us a right perspective on things.
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Old 08-08-2013, 08:53 AM
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How to Use Complexity Theory in Project Management

Project managers often rely on a linear, planned project execution; however, complexity and chaos in the project is usually much more close to reality. Although all parts of a project cannot be controlled, using complexity theory can help you figure out how much to control the chaos, what absolutely needs to be controlled, and what can be left to chaos. This wisdom is not intuitive - you have to completely understand the theory and its application in project management. Here are some tips that boil down how you can use complexity theory:

Tip #1: Permit your Project Team to Dynamically Manage Complex Situations

The enforcement of procedures or processes to handle crises can encumber and slow down the ultimate goal. You can use complexity theory to increase your team's effectiveness by allowing a certain degree of individuality to move the project further. The complexity is the manifestation of enabling and delegating tasks to allow individuality to guide the project team. Often permitting the discretion and leadership of a determined project team member can drive the project team further and faster by allowing certain acts of creativity to become successful.

Tip #2: Understand interconnections
One aspect of complexity theory is commonly referenced in mainstream media: the butterfly effect. The butterfly effect in project management is the understanding that all forces are connected. Conventional wisdom suggests that you should break a project into smaller units and focus on the performance of each unit. However, by understanding the project as a holistic interconnected system, new understanding can be achieved and a big picture view of the project can help you better understand its dynamics.

Tip #3: Create a Good Communication Plan

The PMBOK® Guide cautions project managers that failed communication is the leading cause of project failure. And it is no wonder - in today's environment, multi-cultural project teams and multi-location projects are a reality for most project managers. In these situations, the lines of communication are often more tangled and less affected by hierarchy due to shortfalls in subtle, up-to-date, and/or non-verbal communication. For example, project team members might receive communication in their own time zones, which may create temporary voids of knowledge that can impact a project. This will create potentially negative information to be filled into these voids. If you are not careful, your project team will assume the worst and communication will become a bottleneck as individuals become fearful. This is where knowledge of complexity theory can become instrumental in facilitating success.

Complexity - like change - can impact your projects in positive ways or, if improperly applied, negative ways. It is a given that there are unknowns in your projects and everything may not go as orderly as planned. However, there are several methods through which you can leverage this complexity to assist yourself in becoming more successful.
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