Project Shrink 2008: Oh No Not Again

I try to focus. I really do.

I just want to cover Project Management. I should have become an expert on “Gantt Chart Coloring Schemes”. Writing “100 Places You Can Stick Your Procedure” or “Six Golden Rules To Avoid Work” (I actually did write that one).

Instead I am searching for a “proper whole for PM. I am looking for a true Project Management Body Of Knowledge, one that is based on psychology, sociology, organizational behavior, complex adaptive systems …” Ladidadida.

Good thinking, Bubba.

Photography by MikeOcampo.

Eighteen months later, and I am all over the %$$# place: first going way of the scale chanting about mental flexibility, and now I just have to drag my “Save The Planet” / “We All Can Live Together” idealism into the picture.

Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.

Of course, we should be able to learn some new insights and tricks by taking a different road than “traditional” Project Management. If you keep on doing the same stuff, over and over again, you are getting the same results, over and over again.

And we need different results. Now. Badly.

A Little Help From My Friends

Yeah I know. It is my own stupid mistake to keep on rambling all by myself. I am not going to take this for another 18 months.

So, why not help me out here, heh? Pleaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaase.

You will put yourself on the map as an “expert”. You will learn A LOT by participating. And you will do good, to other people and to the next generations.

“How can I help?” you ask. Stay tuned as you will get that answer in the first part of January when I launch the new community part of SoftwareProjects.org. (A small teaser: it will include video interviews with international experts!)

Anyway, let me get you up to speed on why we need to discuss all these topics when covering the management of projects.

What I Mean With “All Over The Place”

When you look at projects, you also have to look at the individual and the larger organization (e.g. society) that surrounds the project. The three system interact. Panarchy provides us a wide angle lens to look at projects. Originating from socio-ecological field studies this powerful concept lets us capture the project, the individual team members and the embedding organization in one go.

The interactions between the different scales across a panarchy are important in respect to resilience. In terms of Panarchy, three elements are considered: the focal system (in our case “the project”), the higher scales (e.g. the company, or professional group, or society) and the lower scales (e.g. individuals or teams).

“The resilience characteristics of any focal system are in large part determined by the interactions of scales across this panarchy, from the focal system to coarser scales and from the focal system to the finer scales.” (source)

Resilience is the ability to handle disturbances of the focal system in such a way that the function of the system is not influenced. Resilience shifts attention from purely growth and efficiency to needed recovery and flexibility.

In the middle (focal system) I cover topics like:

• Leadership,
• Virtual team work,
• Information flow and feedback,
• Interactions between group members.

On the lower scales I talk about personal development, from meditation to visualization to mental flexibility.

And finally, on the higher scales we should be concerned with:

• Sustainability on every aspect of our society and ecology
• Base-Of-Pyramid (BoP) approaches to wealth distribution
• Social impact of globalization

You see, I was not kidding when I said I was going all over the place.

Now let’s pop the cork and have a great 2009!