{"id":12078,"date":"2013-04-25T13:48:56","date_gmt":"2013-04-25T20:48:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/?p=12078"},"modified":"2013-04-25T13:48:56","modified_gmt":"2013-04-25T20:48:56","slug":"a-dangerous-bias-action-over-thinking","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/?p=12078","title":{"rendered":"A Dangerous Bias: action over thinking"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"brainquestion\"<\/a>Don’t just do something, stop and think!”<\/strong><\/p>\n

Probably haven’t heard that one recently, have we?<\/p>\n

I do an exercise with PM students \u2013 both experienced and just starting \u2013 the topic is about project problems and I give them a set of instructions.\u00a0 When asked, \u201cAre you ready to start?\u201d there is a resounding, \u201cYES!\u201d \u2013 they are ready to dive in even though the instructions do not include any description of what output is expected (nor any acceptance criteria), nor any time constraint.<\/p>\n

Even when primed \u201cto think like project managers,\u201d they just want to dive in.\u00a0 Except for very rare occasions, there are no questions, just an eagerness to show that they are willing and ready.\u00a0 When challenged, most responses boil down to: well, you\u2019re in charge, you\u2019ll tell us.<\/p>\n

OK, maybe some of it is an indictment of our education system, but I see symptoms of this bias to action (and a bias away from critical thinking) in many projects.<\/p>\n

Recently, I was working with a group of young (of course, there seems to be a lot more young people than there used to be for some reason) project managers.\u00a0 They had just recently moved into PM after being successful in various fields.<\/p>\n

The project manager is the person assigned by the performing organization to achieve the project objectives.<\/i><\/p>\n

— A Guide to the PMBOK<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

That\u2019s a pretty classic view \u2013 get it done.\u00a0 Plan.\u00a0 Execute. Control.\u00a0 Close.<\/p>\n

No one seemed to have real problems with those processes.\u00a0 On the other hand, Initiating processes brought up some interesting debate.<\/p>\n

Many of these newly minted PMs thought it wasn\u2019t their place to do initiating.\u00a0 What?\u00a0 Develop\/define a clear mission and identify stakeholders \u2013 of course, we have to do this!\u00a0\u00a0 Oh\u2026 wait\u2026 maybe it\u2019s NOT the role of the PM to do these things?<\/p>\n

Perhaps it is easy to overlook that other roles have responsibilities, too.\u00a0 The sponsor role:<\/p>\n

Project sponsorship is an active role with a crucial impact on potential project success, particularly in the earliest days of the project. The sponsor should proactively define the project’s mission and objectives.<\/p>\n

–Samuel T. Brown, Global Knowledge<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Ah.\u00a0 Of course.\u00a0 Many of these PMs had not been involved in the earliest days.\u00a0 They had \u201cinherited\u201d the mission and objectives \u2013 the ones that had been carefully worked out by the project sponsor, right?\u00a0 You know, the mission and objectives that represent an appropriate balance of our stakeholder needs, our allocation of scarce resources, etc.?<\/p>\n

I think it\u2019s interesting that the Initiating process group seems to expand in focus in each new PMBOK Guide edition.\u00a0 Our profession \u201cunderstands\u201d the importance of starting well as it relates to project success.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, I\u2019ve seen so many projects that do not have sponsors \u201cproactively define\u201d anything much more than \u201cdo it.\u201d\u00a0 Then, we have project managers that are thrown in and are expected to hit the ground running\u2026 Now, I understand that we have to show progress before we have everything in place, but it seems to me that we often sacrifice ever defining a clear mission.<\/p>\n

Perhaps some of us have embraced agile processes to the extent that we deprecate defining mission and objectives to nearly the point of oblivion?\u00a0 Actually, I don\u2019t think that\u2019s the main problem here (although, I do believe many are doing \u201cagile\u201d techniques in very un-agile ways).<\/p>\n

No, there\u2019s a systematic bias.<\/p>\n

So, perhaps if our agile and iterative processes do not seem to be leading us on a path to success, maybe we just dove into the deep end without spending quite enough effort to understand how our stakeholders will be defining success (or even who they are), balancing competing interests over resources and time\u2026 and if our sponsors are not doing enough, who is going to step up?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Don’t just do something, stop and think!” Probably haven’t heard that one recently, have we? I do an exercise with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"give_campaign_id":0,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,6,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12078","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-goals","category-communications","category-miscellaneous"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12078","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12078"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12078\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12085,"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12078\/revisions\/12085"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12078"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12078"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12078"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}