Tagged with: evolutionary behavior • Jonathan Whitty • social group • video
For over three years there is a conversation in the comments of The Project Shrink that pops up once in a while. It’s one of my favorites.
Why do we do what we do? Are our industry’s best practices really that, or do we merely say they are because as a PM we are expected to say so?
Jonathan Whitty from University of Southern Queensland creates fascinating articles and lectures around this theme by looking at this topic from a evolutionary behavior perspective.
I just discovered a nice video interview about “The Peacock and the Project Manager“.
“The point is made that Gantt charts have been adapted by project managers to serve as a cue or advertisement for their skills and abilities, and this aids their chances in being selected for the next big project manager role.”
Hat tip to Will for pointing me to this video.
Hi Bas, your lovely post reminded me of the following story.
A girl asks her mother why she always cut off the tail and head of a fish before frying it. The mother said because” my mum used to do the same. Let me ask your grandmother why she did that”. The grandmother replied to the question “because my frying pan was too small to accommodate the fish. To fit the fish in the frying pan I used to chop off the head and tail”. How many of us do things because they inherited the “best practices” without thinking”?
Is the frying pan large enough for the Gantt chart?
Hey Ali, fantastic story! Thanks for sharing.
Bas, thanks for posting this. I’ve noticed my ‘views’ count creeping up over the last few days and wondered where the attention was coming from. I’m glad your readers find these themes interesting and hopefully progressive. As you might imagine, my thoughts and findings don’t go down well with the more conservative project management thinkers.
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Hi Jon, thanks for commenting… I absolutely love these topics, PMs are a (social) group and we need to be aware of our own behavior to be able to lead others in creating change.
You will be amazed how much people share this same sentiment… I hope you keep creating videos like this (and articles of course)
Hi Bas,
I gave a talk at the Australian Institute of PM last week. I’ve put the recording on my channel. Best, Jon
Hi John, thanks for the pointer. I am looking forward to view it entirely.
People interested can watch it here:
Watched the video. It’s awesome! Great examples. Great explanations. wow.