Ancient discovery of agile PM from 2600BC?

In Dahshur, Egypt, you will find one of the most interesting of all of the (already interesting) pyramids. It's called the "Bent Pyramid", and it was built for a king named Sneferu (pictured below).


What's interesting about this particular pyramid is that its slope suddenly and dramatically changes from 52 degrees to a much lower slope of about 43 degrees, about halfway up the height of the pyramid.



Why?

What happened?

Two theories abound, both of which are definitely all about our profession and discipline.

Theory 1 says that there were collapses and problems (risk triggers and risk occurrences) that indicated the slope was too steep for the materials they were using so the design was changed on the fly to the softer slope.

Theory 2 says that the death of the pharaoh was more imminent than originally expected (schedule pull-up) and they needed to finish more quickly.

Either way, the project engineers were dealing with another pyramid of sorts, or at least a triangle - the ancient triple constraint. This has fallen from favor in the PMBOK(R) Guide, replaced on page 6 with a listing of Scope, Quality, Schedule, Budget, Resources, and Risk, but however you look at it, the project manager adapted and showed his or her agility with the change in slope midway through the project.

Today, much is being made of agile PM, mainly in the area of software development. To some PMs, agile seems like a pyramid scheme (sorry for that lame reference, but I simply had to do it); to others, it is the new way and the only way to do things.

The PMBOK(R) guide does not feature agile PM techniques per se - it does not even show up in the index. However some authors and speakers have done some excellent work on how agile PM can be linked to the PMBOK(R) Guide. Check out this site, from Michele Sliger of Sliger Consulting, it's loaded with some great presentations on the subject.

To me, and this posting, it's really just a reminder of how proud and ancient our job is. As evidenced here, we've been dealing with change requests for thousands and thousands of years.

Now for those of you who have been following ScopeCrepe from its ancient beginnings, you know this isn't my first posting about pyramids, nor will it be the last.

If the idea of pyramids intrigues you, you may want to go back to Akapalah Pyramids, now a classic, for sure, and read that one!

Looking past "The End of the Beginning"

As project managers we think (and often dream) about the end of our projects. And what is that end?

It's the successful turn up of a computer network. Or, it's the availability of a new service. Or, perhaps it's the readiness of a new bridge, a new building, a new drug, a new electric toothbrush.

Do you note a pattern here?

When we're done, something else, usually something bigger, is starting.

We often limit our thinking as project managers to the lifecycle of our project and don't think enough about the lifecycle of the product of our projects. For those of you who weren't paying attention, that's the "bigger thing" that is enabled by your project.

This concept reminded me (or perhaps it's the other way around) of a book and movie which I've always enjoyed. Both the book and movie share the title, "The Discovery of Heaven". Do yourself a favor and rent this film or read the book. It's by famed Dutch author Harry Mulisch, and it's not known so well in the USA but is throughout Europe. Here's the trailer.

From wikipedia, here is the synopsis of the book:

The Discovery of Heaven tells the story of an angel-like being, who is ordered to return to Heaven the stone tablets containing the ten commandments, given to Moses by God, which symbolise in the book the link between Heaven and Earth. The divine being, however, cannot himself travel to Earth, and on several occasions in the book resorts to influencing events. He affects the personal lives of three people (two men and one woman) in order that a child will be conceived. This child would then have an innate desire to seek out and return the Tablets.

The book consists of four parts (dubbed "The Beginning of the Beginning", "The End of the Beginning", "The Beginning of the End", and "The End of the End"). In between these four parts, the angel-like being discusses "The Plan" with his superior, who is supposedly an archangel.

The inspiration for the posting comes not from the religious theme of the book, but rather the way the book is organized:

• The Beginning of the Beginning
• The End of the Beginning
• The Beginning of the End
• The End of the End

Now back to project management and our way of thinking. We don't realize it when we plan our projects but we only work on the first two parts: The Beginning of the Beginning, where we Initiate and Plan the project, and The End of the Beginning, in which we execute, monitor and control, and close the project. We don't look ahead - often enough - to what happens in the "life and death" of the bridge, the building, the drug, the computer system - even the electric toothbrush.

And that brings me to Life Cycle Analysis, something my partner and I at EarthPM are asserting that we'd better start looking at as PMs - and not just for the very valid environmental reasons, but because it helps us understand the project, its product, and its products' customers more effectively.

I won't detail this here because it's something we'll be covering in our upcoming book, but I would like to reference you to the EPA (US Environmental Protection Agency) site that covers this. They provide an excellent set of PDF training on the subject.

Here's a link to the basic training page of the EPA. There's more, much more to be learned on this subject and we will be covering it in our upcoming book, but I wanted to share this with you here first. Learn more on EarthPM.com.

And go rent that movie!

Oh, chute!

I'd like to share an analogy I use in my Project Management courses to explain the often misunderstood difference between secondary and residual risk.

Secondary risks are those which are caused by the treatment or response to the risk.

Residual risk is the risk which remains even after you have treated or responded to the risk.

So here goes the analogy.

You are jumping from a plane. Yep. That's a situation which clearly has some threat to it. It also has opportunity (in this case a thrill). But let's focus on the threat. How do we respond to the threat of severe injury or death that we will encounter if we simply fall to the ground from several thousand meters (or feet, it really doesn't matter)?

Well the answer is that we mitigate the risk with a parachute. That's our risk response. So let's go through two scenarios in which the parachute doesn't work exactly like it was designed.

Scenario 1: We pull the cord, and the parachute deploys but due to air currents, the force of the "tug" when it deploys causes you to sprain your shoulder. Oh, CHUTE! Ow! That hurts. That is an example of secondary risk. The risk response (the chute) caused a new risk.

Scenario 2: We pull the cord, the parachute deploys smoothly, and we cruise to the ground but for whatever reason it does not provide us a slow enough descent and, Oh CHUTE! Ow! we sprain an ankle when we land. That's an example of residual risk - a threat that remains even after we have responded to the risk.

I hope that helps clear up the difference.

Whether or not this cleared things up for you, at least get a laugh out of this posting. Have a look at this humorous video from Dutch insurance carrier Centraal Beheer, involving... you guessed it, a secondary risk from a parachute. Click here for the video.

Happy landings!

"The danger of the single story"- Chimamanda Adichie

You know that I've blogged before about the danger of PMs taking a single-point estimate. I want to draw your attention to a nice talk given by Chimamanda Adichie (shown on the left) called, "The Danger of the Single Story".

I'd like to acknowledge Pervez Mohammed of VISIONS non-profit group for making me aware of this video.

It takes the idea of a single-point estimate to a whole new level.

Listen to her. The video is about 20 minutes and is located HERE.

Then think. Or maybe reflect is a better word here. Think about using this as you identify risks, as you build your teams, as you take inputs from contributors. Don't rely on one source. As a PM you need to be unbiased and open to wider sources of information and willing to listen to alternate versions.

This talk may help you with that.

Enjoy.

Bored --> Board --> Exciting

Today, I'm very happy to announce that I've become a Distributor for a tremendous product that brings fun, intrigue, and yes, even thrills to the world of learning about project management. Thus the image above.

Project management learning should be a little more like that, don't you think? Well, it can be, with a board game that takes project managers on a bit of a roller-coaster ride through a project and teaches them about risk and much more.

The board game, which was carefully developed over a nine year period by Kay Wais at Successful Projects can now be obtained via my company, Exclaim!PM.

See the press release HERE.

This game and supporting materials - although focused on project risk management - really uses the "churning is learning" philosophy that Kay and I agree is so basically important to the way adults learn about project management in general.



I plan to use adopt it in my series of courses that make up a Master's Certificate in PM, and if you are an educator or student of PM and would like to do the same, please contact me for information and availability of the materials.



Here's a picture of the game:




















There's a video of the game here.



For more about the game, contact me directly at exclaim@verizon.net

Thanks!

Free WBS tool for download

Here's a very small program with a very specialized task: make quick work out of genrating a WBS.

It's free, fairly intuitive, and does its task well.

Check it out here:


http://www.wbs-tool.net/

Get SMARTER

Some of the "more seasoned" of us may recall the old TV series, Get Smart, and the more youthful readers will certainly know the Get Smart movie that came out a few years (based on that original TV show). The title, and most of the writing, was very clever, and 'played with words'. Smart was the name of the agent, and the bad guys were always trying to 'get' (as in capture) Smart. But it was of course also a reference to getting smarter - as in 'gaining intelligence or wisdom'.

To remind you of the show, click here to see the opening music and credits which were a thing of beauty in and of themselves.

And most of us in the wonderful world of management will recognize the acronym SMART for dealing with goals and objectives. Remember?

S - specific, significant, stretching

M - measurable, meaningful, motivational

A - agreed upon, attainable, achievable, acceptable, action-oriented

R - realistic, relevant, reasonable, rewarding, results-oriented

T - time-based, tangible, trackable

Well, we here at ScopeCrepe, and also at EarthPM, our related endeavor, would like to say that the time for getting SMART has passed. It's gone. It's fizzled. It's deceased. Would you believe that it was at least getting old?

Instead of just getting SMART these days, we think we need to be SMARTER. How, you ask, can we be SMARTER?

Glad you asked.

We can be SMARTER by adding two more letters to SMART. Of course, those two letters are E and R.

E - Environmentally

R - Responsible

In other words, it's not just enough to set our project goals and objectives as we said above, we also have to consider the effectiveness of the processes of the project itself, and its own waste and inefficiencies, we also should consider the end-product and its disposal or re-use.

If this intrigues you at all, or even if it annoys you, you should find out more about what we're saying and how you can add those two little - but important- letters, by visiting EarthPM - http://earthpm.com .

And while you're at it, Get SMARTER!

Don't miss it, even by that much.