Archive for the ‘mismanagement’ Category
Sherlock Holmes and the case of the terminated PMO
“Tch, tch,” clucked Holmes, shaking his head. “What a tragedy, Watson,” he continued, “yet another project management office cut down in its prime.”
Watson said nothing; he knew his friend did not like interruptions when he was surveying a crime scene.
Holmes walked around as he always did, in apparently random fashion, his sharp eyes darting from here to there taking in the details – the process flowcharts on a wall, project schedules displayed over on the other side, the printed portfolio reports that lay on the table and the many other artefacts that are part and parcel of a PMO.
After watching his friend for what seemed like an eternity, Watson could hold his curiosity no longer: “What’s your guess, Holmes?” he asked.
“I never guess. It is a shocking habit—destructive to the logical faculty.” He looked up sharply, “You should know better than to ask Watson….”
“I know, Holmes, but my curiosity gets the better of me. What do you think happened?”
“Ah yes, what I think. What I think is not important, Watson,” he said, wagging his index finger in his friend’s direction. “We must focus on what we know – the facts.”
“So, what are the facts?” asked Watson wearily. His friend could be an insufferable pedant.
“You know my methods, Watson. Look around you. What do you see?”
Oh, they were going to play that game again. Shaking his head in exasperation, Watson said, “Why don’t you save time and tell me, Holmes. You are the genius, not I.”
“Ah Watson, sarcasm does not become you. Anyway, I take no offence and will offer you some hints so that you may begin to discern the real reason for the failure of this PMO.”
He walked over to the flowcharts on the wall and asked,” Tell me Watson, What are these and what do they tell you?”
Watson walked over to the charts, looked at them intently and said, “I think we can safely say these describe project management processes.” Then, jabbing his finger at a chart, he continued, “This one describes the process of authorisation. It seems sensible enough – a need is identified, a business case drawn up and submitted to the project governance board, it is evaluated against certain criteria and then a decision is made on whether the project should be authorised or not. And look at this one, ‘tis a work of art….”
“Do you know, Watson,” interrupted Holmes, “that it is one of the curses of a mind with a turn like mine that I must look at everything with reference to my own special subject. You look at these attractive flowcharts, and you are impressed by their beauty. I look at them, and the only thought which comes to me is a feeling of their isolation and of the impunity with which they may be subverted.”
“Huh?” blurted Watson, not knowing quite what to make of this.
“I see you are perplexed, Watson. Let me put it another way, a PMO may require that project managers comply with certain process, but it cannot enforce compliance.”
“So you think the PMO failed because it could not get project managers to follow processes?”
“Yes, Watson. But experience tells me that although that may be a visible symptom, it is not the cause. You’re a doctor so I don’t need to tell you that identifying symptoms is necessary but, to cure the disease, one must find the cause. It is all too easy to label the symptom as the cause – many consultants have done so, and have thus made recommendations that are worse than useless.”
“Worse than useless? I don’t understand, Holmes.”
“Yes, worse than useless. If organisations focus on curing symptoms rather than causes, they will end up exacerbating the underlying dysfunctions. For example, if a consultant mistakenly labels the fact that project managers did not follow processes as the cause, the organisation may put in place procedures that forces managers to comply with processes. That, as you will no doubt appreciate, is doing exactly the wrong thing – it will only make things worse.”
“Why is it the wrong thing? Surely if they are forced to comply, they will and the processes will then be followed as they should be.”
“Ah, Watson,” said Holmes, shaking his head in exasperation, “that’s the army man in you talking.” He continuted sharply, “This is not the military, Sir! This is the messy world of organisation-land where people are autonomous agents even though management orthodoxy would have us believe otherwise.”
“’Tis a matter of discipline, Holmes. Surely you do not advocate letting project managers behave as they would want – as, how do you say it…autonomous agents.”
“ You know Watson, may be you are right,” said Holmes. “Perhaps when a man has special knowledge and special powers like my own, it rather encourages him to seek a complex explanation when a simpler one is at hand.”
“Indeed, I think you are over-complicating matters my dear Holmes. This is an open and shut case – a failure of enforcement and compliance.” said Watson.
“Possibly, Watson. However, the truth is not to be found here in the PMO. It lies elsewhere, in the hallowed heights of the executive floor… Anyway there is a more immediate matter that needs our attention: it is late and the sun sinks rapidly. We must make our way to that fine establishment I noticed at the end of the street – I could do with a pint or three.”
“Well said, Holmes!”
The two made their way towards the exit.
———
“Come, friend Watson, the curtain rings up for the last act,” murmured Holmes, as the two of them entered the elevator. They had come to the head office to meet the executive director.
The two found their way to the meeting room on the executive floor and entered.
“Hello Holmes, it is good to see you again,” boomed the executive director, “and I see you have brought Dr. Watson with you. Good to see you too, sir. Do come in and meet my management team.”.
After the mandatory round of introductions and business card exchanges, the director continued,”I take it you have something for us, Holmes.”
“Yes sir, I have a number of questions.“
“Questions? I don’t understand, Holmes. We hired you to find us some answers about the failure of our PMO, and you tell me have a few questions. I take it you have some answers too. The CIO expects answers not questions,” he said with a nervous chuckle.
“No,I have no answers…but a hypothesis that I hope to validate soon.”
“I do not understand the need for this drama,” said the director.
“Watson here will tell you that I can never resist a touch of the dramatic.”
“OK, Holmes, you had better get to it then,” said the director shortly.
“I’ll get right to it sir,” he said, and turned to face the seated managers. “Ladies and gentlemen, pray what was the objective of your PMO?”
There was a stunned silence. Finally, one of the managers spoke up, “Surely that is obvious Mr, Holmes.”
“Thank you. I do realise my question may seem a little simple minded to you, but I beg that you answer it in a way that you would to someone who knows nothing about PMOs.” He turned to the executive director for confirmation.
“Yes, yes, answer his question,” said the executive director impatiently.
“OK, if you insist. The basic objective of the PMO can be summarised in a line. It was to ensure that all our strategic projects are delivered on time, within the agreed budget and to the required standards of quality. Needless to say, the PMO failed to deliver: as I recall, out of the 12 strategic projects we have, 8 or 9 are in serious trouble – over budget and/or time by more than 50%,” said the manager. “That is all the relevant detail… I trust it is not too much for you, Mr Holmes,” he added.
“”I am glad of all details, whether they seem to you to be relevant or not,” retorted Holmes. Then, in a gentler tone, he asked, “How exactly was the PMO expected to achieve these objectives?”
The managers looked at each other, nonplussed at the question.
Finally, one of them asked, “Mr. Holmes, what do you mean by “how”? I do not understand your question…and I think I speak for my colleagues too. We followed the advice of Lord Gartner and Baron McKinsey in setting up our PMO. Among many other things, we are fully aware of the importance of giving a PMO complete authority to oversee and control IT projects across the organisation. I am sure you are aware that our PMO had implemented a set of proven best practice project and portfolio management standards to ensure control and oversight.”
“Yes, we have seen the process charts…they are impressive indeed,” piped up Watson. Holmes gave him The Look.
“That is so, and the fact that some projects have succeeded shows that the processes do work,” said another manager.
“My dear sir, results without causes are impressive but assuming a causal link between them, sans proof, is not,” said Holmes. “Let me ask you a simple question, sir. Would you say your organisation is unique – one of a kind?”
“Of course it is,” said the manager. “We have just been voted a ‘best employer’ and we won several industry awards in previous years. Indeed we are unique.”
“…and yet you implement standardised processes?”
“What is your point, Mr. Holmes?”
“Let me spell it out: your organisation is unique, as are your people. Right?”
“Yes,” said the manager. Others around the room were nodding their assent.
“In view of your uniqueness, don’t you think you ought to develop – rather evolve – your own unique processes in collaboration with your project managers rather than impose one-size-fits-all “best practice” standards on them?”
“But…why should we do that…and how ?” Asked the executive director.
“Sir, I’ve already answered the “why.” I will leave the “how” for you and your team to figure out. Whatever else you do, I cannot overemphasise the importance of including your frontline managers and employees in the discussions about how your PMO should function, and also in selecting and designing appropriate processes.”
“I see…,” said the director thoughtfully.
“Sir, your PMO failed because it attempted to transplant practices that allegedly worked elsewhere into your unique –dare I say, special – organisation. As was inevitable, the transplant was roundly rejected: your people found the processes strange, even arbitrary, and resented them. Consequently, they found ways to work around them instead of with them. Failure of your PMO was preordained because of your focus on processes rather than intentions.
The executive director nodded thoughtfully, as the penny dropped. “Thank you Holmes,” he said, “I see your point….finally.”
“Thank you sir…and thank you all,” said Holmes nodding at each of the seated managers in turn. “There is much work for you all to do now, so Dr. Watson and I will show ourselves out.”
The two gathered their papers and left, shutting the door behind them gently.
“Never underestimate the power of a question to illuminate the truth,” said Holmes sententiously as he and Watson entered the elevator.
Watson rolled his eyes; his friend was brilliant, but he could also be a pompous ass.
——–
Acknowledgements:
Thanks to Arati Apte and Paul Culmsee for encouragement and feedback on earlier drafts of this story.
Notes:
- Spot the quote (for Sherlock Holmes trainspotters): there are eight quotes from various Sherlock Holmes adventures in this post; most are verbatim, but a couple of the longer ones have been adapted to fit the narrative.
- If you enjoyed this piece, you might want to have a look at the other business fables on this blog.
All models are wrong, some models are harmful
Introduction
One of the ways in which we attempt to understand and explain natural and social phenomena is by building models of them. A model is a representation of a real-world phenomenon, and since the real world is messy, models are generally based on a number of simplifying assumptions. It is worth noting that models may be mathematical but they do not have to be – I present examples of both types of models in this article.
In this post I make two points:
- That all models are incomplete and are therefore wrong.
- That certain models are not only wrong, but can have harmful consequences if used thoughtlessly. In particular I will discuss a model of human behaviour that is widely taught and used in management practice, much to the detriment of organisations.
Before going any further I should clarify that I don’t “prove” that all models are wrong; that is likely an impossible task. Instead, I use an example to illustrate some general features of models which strongly suggest that no model can possibly account for all aspects of a phenomenon. Following that I discuss how models of human behaviour must be used with caution because they can have harmful consequences.
All models are wrong
Since models are based on simplifying assumptions, they can at best be only incomplete representations of reality. It seems reasonable to expect that all models will breakdown at some point because they are not reality. In this section, I illustrate this looking at a real-world example drawn from the king of natural sciences, physics.
Theoretical physicists build mathematical models that describe natural phenomena. Sir Isaac Newton was a theoretical physicist par excellence. Among other things, he hypothesized that the force that keeps the earth in orbit around the sun is the same as the one that keeps our feet firmly planted on the ground. Based on observational inferences made by Johannes Kepler, Newton also figured out that the force is inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them. That is: if the distance between two bodies is doubled, the gravitational force between them decreases four-fold. For those who are interested, there is a nice explanation of Newton’s law of gravitation here.
Newton’s law tells us the precise nature of the force of attraction between two bodies. It is universal in that it applies to all things that have a mass, regardless of the specific material they are made of. It’s utility is well established: among other things, it enables astronomers and engineers to predict the trajectories of planets, satellites and spacecraft to extraordinary accuracy; on the flip side it also enables war mongers to compute the trajectories of missiles. Newton’s law of gravitation has been tested innumerable times since it was proposed in the late 1700s, and it has passed with flying colours every time.
Yet, strictly speaking, it is wrong.
To understand why, we need to understand what it means to explain something. I’ll discuss this somewhat philosophical issue by sticking with gravity. Newton’s law enables us to predict the effects of gravity, but it does not tell us what gravity actually is. Yes, it’s a force, but what exactly is this force? How does it manifest itself? What is it that passes between two bodies to make them “aware” of each other’s existence?
Newton is silent on all these questions.
An explanation had to wait for a century and a half. In 1914 Einstein proposed that every body that has mass creates a distortion of space (actually space and time) around it. He formalised this idea in his General Theory of Relativity which tells us that gravity is a consequence of the curvature of space-time.
This is difficult to visualise, so perhaps an analogy will help. Think of space-time as a flat rubber sheet. A marble on the sheet causes a depression (or curvature) in the vicinity of the marble. Another marble close enough would sense the curvature and would tend to roll towards the original marble. To an observer who wasn’t aware of the curvature (imagine the rubber sheet to be invisible) the marbles would appear to be attracted to each other. Yet at a deeper level, the attraction is simply a consequence of geometry. In this sense then, Einstein’s theory “explains” gravity at a more fundamental level than Newton’s law does.
Now, one of the predictions of Einstein’s theory is that the force of gravitation is ever so slightly different from that predicted by Newton’s law. This difference is so small that it is unnoticeable in the case of spacecraft or even planets, but it does make a difference in the case of dense, massive bodies such as black holes. Many experiments have confirmed that Einstein’s theory is more accurate than Newton’s.
So Newton was wrong.
However, the story doesn’t end there because Einstein was wrong too. It turns out, that Einstein’s theory of gravitation is not consistent with Quantum Mechanics, the theory that describes the microworld of atoms and elementary particles. One of the open problems in theoretical physics is the development of a quantum theory of gravity. To be honest, I don’t know much at all about quantum gravity, so if you want to know more about this other holy grail of physics, I’ll refer you to Lee Smolin’s excellent book, Three Roads to Quantum Gravity.
Anyway, the point I wish to make is not that these luminaries were wrong but that the limitations of their models were in a sense inevitable. Why? Well, because our knowledge of the real world is never complete, it is forever work in progress. We build models based on what we know at a given time, which in turn is based on our current state of knowledge and the empirical data that supports it. The world, however, is much more complex than our limited powers of reasoning and observation , even if these are enhanced by instruments. Consequently any models that we construct are necessarily incomplete – and therefore, wrong.
Some models are harmful
The foregoing brings me to the second point of this post.
There’s nothing wrong in being wrong, of course; especially if our understanding of the world is enhanced in the process. I would be quite happy to leave it there if that was all there was to it. The problem is that there is something more insidious and dangerous: some models are not only wrong, they are positively harmful.
And no, I’m not referring to nuclear weapons; nuclear fission by itself is neither benign nor dangerous, it is what we do with it that makes it so. I’m referring to something far more commonplace, a model that underpins much of modern day management: it is the notion that humans are largely rational beings who make decisions based solely on their narrow self-interest. According to this view of humans as economic beings, we are driven by material gain to the exclusion of all other considerations. This is a narrow, one-dimensional view of humans but is one that is legitimised by mainstream economics and has been adopted enthusiastically by many management schools and their alumni.
Among other things, those who subscribe to this model believe that:
- Employees are inherently untrustworthy because they will act in their own personal interests, with no consideration of the greater good. Consequently their performance needs to be carefully “incentivised” and monitored.
- Management’s goals should be to maximise profits. Consequently they should be “incentivised” by bonuses that are linked solely to profit earned.
These are harmful because
- Treating employees like potential shirkers who need to “motivated” by a carrot and stick policy will only demotivate them.
- Linking senior management bonuses to financial performance alone encourages managers to follow strategies that boost short term profits regardless of the long term consequences.
The fact of the matter is that humans are not atoms or planets; they can (and will) change their behaviour depending on how they are treated.
To sum up
All models are wrong, but some models – especially those relating to human behaviour – are harmful. The danger of taking models of human behaviour literally is that they tend become self fulfilling prophecies. As Eliyahu Goldratt once famously said, “Tell me how you measure me and I’ll tell you how I’ll behave.” Measure managers by the profits they generate and they’ll work to maximise profits to the detriment of longer-term sustainability, treat employees like soulless economic beings and they’ll end up behaving like the self-serving souls the organisation deserves.
A consulting tragedy in five limericks
The consultant said, “be assured,
my motives are totally pure.
I guarantee
my inflated fee
is well worth my ‘best practice’ cure.”
Although it was too much to pay,
this argument carried the day:
consultants hired
can always be fired
and assigned much of the blame.
After the contract was signed,
only then did the client find
the solution bought
would definitely not
help leave their troubles behind.
Cos’ the truth was plain to see,
the ‘best practice’ methodology
had only led
to the overhead
of a ponderous bureacracy.
The shock, the horror, the pain-
all that money and effort in vain,
but the tragedy
is the powers that be
would do it all over again.
Eight to Late 