Sane Project Management Hindered by Tools

I think every project manager I have worked with has had their ear bent by my opinions on sane ways to track a project – and in most cases I think they have bought my thoughts, well at least the spirit of them anyway – but in the end thing carry on as usual.

I guess somewhere in my head the question has been passively brewing – why ?

I think today I came across something that helps me answer that question… but before we go there, let me give you an idea of what I think are sane project management approaches :

Absolute Dates vs Probabilistic Dates

Projects are by definition unknowns with variables we don’t understand and others that we don’ t even know exist until much later… but still we insist in treating projects like a absolute science by attributing absolute dates to future work.

Why not simply add a bit of probabilities to the whole equation, and be more honest. Simply put define best case date and worst case dates, making the expected date be the middle of the normal distribution.

What is important however is to not publicise the expected date, but be honest and talk about the distribution –because that is all you really know. Naturally as you tend closer to the end of a task or project your distribution curve will tighten to match the increase knowledge.

Time Used vs Time Remaining

Why do people insist on assuming that information in the past is somehow more accurate or important than information today -that is clearly more informed.

How do they make this assumption – they ask how much time you have put into a task, subtract that from the estimated effort and tell you how far you are into the task…. what ? Umm surely I was the one who told you it would take X… now that I have spend Y on it and understand it Y times more… I think I might be the best person to tell you how far I am.. and by that I mean tell you the same information I told you at the start… I need Z still to complete this.

Automated Timesheets

So there is this really clever project plan that you have set up.. and put lots of thought into it with consultation from your lowly developer plotting out my goals over the next period. Nice.

Then why, pray tell, do I need to fill in a timesheet. I mean really what am I saying that is new ? basically I am just rebuilding the project plan in an excel format – just one day at a time.

Timesheets should only be filled out by exception only.

So what Did I come across

Okay before I get carried away ( could you see how that was being written in the first person )… lets bring this back to the topic at hand – what did I come across and why patterns tend not to change.

I saw this blog article by Steve McConnell where he talks about a web based product called liquidPlanner which does all of these things… and I don’t mean that it supports these ideas as an option, I mean that they are fundamental to the way the tool is created and used.

I played around with it a bit – and it was great to see the concepts I believed in being concreted into a complete tool – not just trying to hack these concepts onto the existing tools you are working with.

Then it occurred to me.

Why did things not change

I think the main reason that things don’t really change even after people buy into an idea, is that the existing tool set is forcing you another way. The inertia of the status quo is just too strong.

Now that there is a tool based on these concepts, there may be a mainstream shift. I am not saying that LiquidPlanner is the answer – but a pioneer yes ( well a public one at least – I am sure there are other tools that have done this but without the backing of a Steve McConnell they have not gotten the publicity ).

This will – I hope – lead to a new market for tools and communities to help mature this type of thinking – and stop it just sounding like the whining of developers who do not want to fill in their time sheets and just want things different.

Conclusion

I guess at the end of the day this is true for us all, which is why classics like the Golden Hammer are indeed classic :

 “If the only tool you have is a hammer, you tend to see every problem  as a nail”

We are strongly influenced by the tools we are using – despite our thinking, which is why I have argued before that it is important to try something radically different to what you are used to to give you perspective.