No wonder our perception of project work is distorted.
#PMFlashBlog – Project Management Around the World
– Brisbane, Australia
By Jon Whitty
My
conversations with project managers about project management began in Brisbane
a number of years ago. I started a small study (which I published as: Project management
artefacts and the affective emotions they evoke) where I asked project
managers a simple question to which they had to pencil sketch the answer. No
words were allowed. I would ask the project managers to close their eyes and
remember a time they were managing a project. I then say, “Now answer this
question by drawing the answer”. The question is “managing that project was
like {draw}” And what they draw is most revealing. They certainly don’t draw a Gantt chart!
What I discovered
from this simple experiment is that our perceptions of project work is massively
distorted by the various common artefacts (billboards if you like) of the
project management community. The Gantt chart is a prime example. It reflects very
little of the project experience ahead. An itemised to-do-list would do a
better job. And in many cases I’ve found this is actually what is used.
To explore this
further consider how pictures are manipulated every day. And these images can
have an enormous distorting influence on our view of the world and of
ourselves.
I’d like
you to watch this ‘Dove Campaign’ video from start to finish. And as you watch
it consider carefully the impact the final image has on both the model and you
and I who encounter his picture at the bus stop.
No wonder we have negative images of our own working practices.
In
a previous version of this post I said “I’d love to be able to create a video
someday to show the creation of the Gantt chart in a similar way." And here one is!
On the left
is how project managers really experience a project. And on the right is a manipulated
and distorted version of events.
This is
tinkering with reality in so many ways. The Gantt chart smooths out the turbulent,
emotional, punctuated, messy, and unforgiving real world into smooth, modernist,
calming and confident lines. The real
pictures are packed with emotion, jaggedness, and non-linear relationships. None
of them are even the same! If a project is anything, it’s personal and experienced
personally. Yet somehow we have been duped into believing that all projects can
be represented by a Gantt chart.
And anyway
the Gantt chart is altogether the wrong piece of art work to represent the work
of a project. What it does represent it an operational production environment. If
you want to know more about this then take a look at the writings of PatrickWeaver and TerryMcKenna.
I think the
project management practitioner community should take a long hard look at their
use of Gantt charts. Don’t wait for the project management professional bodies to do it because the
Gantt chart reinforces all of the ideals these bodies base their certification on.
From my
many conversations with practising project managers I would say that the Gantt
chart lowers their self-esteem about their work practices. And furthermore it raises
the expectations of senior management to unrealistic heights.
If you can’t
achieve what’s on your Gantt chart, don’t you feel out of control?
Perhaps we
should put warnings on Gantt charts saying that the real world has been
manipulated to look harmonious, ordered, and in control.
