Diversity
A project is a landscape.
It’s a micro cosmos within a neighborhood of surrounding universes.
In this landscape dwell life forms of various shapes, sizes, colors.
Circles, Triangles and Squares.
Reds, Greens, Blues
Small, Medium, Large.
Reds of various shapes and sizes follow a methodology different to the one followed by the Greens and different to the one followed by the Blues.
Circles of various colors and sizes belong to a club different to the one attended by the Triangles and different to the one attended by the Squares.
The Mediums have a Dominant personality. The Smalls have a Sociable personality. The Bigs have an Inquisitive personality.
A project landscape is a subset of a suburb, city, state, country and the whole world.
It is a subset of a department, division, organization.
It is a subset of a program and a portfolio.
The conflicting
- attitudes,
- personalities,
- belief systems,
- prejudices and
- cultural variances
exist in the project’s micro cosmos, in exactly the same dosage as in the surrounding macro cosmoses.
Yet, there seems to be much less violence in the project landscape than in the surrounding landscapes.
True? False?
And Why?
No related posts.
Pingback: Shim Marom
Pingback: Sara BROCA
It would be wrong to assume that attitudes, personalities, etc exist in the micro in exactly the same dosage as the macro. Whilst the micro would share the characteristics of the macro given that it is drawn from that pool, there are many different factors that would result in variations in the culture between the two as well as behaviours of the participants. The result is that you may end up with more or less violence in a landscape that is a subset of the larger landscape. It can be interpreted and understood within that wider context however. Rather than shapes, colors, etc I think of it as a fruit cake, consisting many different ingredients, representing the individuals and the many different and overlapping groups (such as social, racial, religious, education) that they will belong to. If the dosage or distribution of those ingredients was equal throughout the cake then each slice would taste the same. This would be a statistical anomaly however. The taste is further impacted by variations between the quality of individual items within ingredient.
Hi Ash, thanks for your comment.
I have to admit my statement was lacking the scientific rigour and was based solely on my gut-feel. Can’t argue with your argument as I don’t have the data to do so. Irrespective of the above, though, there seem to be better behaviour exhibited in project world than in the outside world. My interpretation is that it is a result of the non-existential dimension associated with project work (i.e. in the main it is done for professional reasons and not to mitigate life-threatening circumstances). I wonder if it would be correct to project from people’s behaviour in a project environment on their behaviours and attitudes in real-life situations.
Cheers, Shim.
Pingback: Shim Marom
Pingback: The Donny Ryder story | quantmleap