A 27th September 2010 article in the Slate Magazine discussed the merits (and indeed the logic) behind performing an autopsy on Theresa Lewis, the woman who was executed in Virginia earlier in September this year. The article’s title, “It was probably the lethal injection” echoes the simple message that in some circumstances, investigating the relationships that exist between cause and effect are so blatantly obvious that the effort of determining this relationship is probably redundant.
I was pondering this point while having a discussion with a colleague PM, where we discussed a case where a Post Implementation Review was conducted on a project that had all the obvious indicators pointing to failure. The scope was known to be vague, stakeholders were uninterested or too busy to make any noticeable contribution, project controls were lacking and risks were diligently recorded but lacked any credible management. So the project failed, why wouldn’t it? The interesting and more so puzzling aspect was that senior management requested a PIR. And like the Theresa Lewis case above, the obvious question is, WHY? WHAT FOR? Isn’t it obvious why this project failed? If you mismanage the whole process and the inevitable happens you’d better let it RIP and don’t worry about the PIR.
Think about it!
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Shim, very interesting phenomenon you have observed. I had similar experiences.
too often management want someone implicated when a project fails. It is almost like somebody has to be fed to the angry project gods to appease them.
What often is sought is somebody’s fingerprint on the murder weapon. The idea is that if we can find someone to be guilty for the failure and punish them, then we can declare the problem solved.
That way, we don’t have to face the real systemic issues that cause projects to fail.
I advice project managers not to feed the witch-hunt that happens after a project failure under the guise of PIR.
My experience is that it takes a village to fail a project and the entire organization has to be complicit for a project to fail.
Cheers.
Samad.
Hey Samad, great to have you back. There is a ridiculous phenomena whereby a greater emphasis is put on finding a scapegoat rather than pointing at the real culprit – which is undoubtedly an incorrect or inadequate process. I’m convinced, although yet to find the empirical evidence, that most failures are a result of environmental (i.e. organizational, cultural, procedural) reasons and very rarely would failures be a result of complete human incompetence. I therefore fully endorse your comments.
Cheers, Shim.
Shim,
Just to add to what you mentioned about how most failures are a result of environmental:
I can’t agree with you more.
I read this summer a book by Nilofer Merchant that I highly recommend. It is called “The New How”. In it, Nilofer talks about why strategy fails. Here is what Nilofer said about strategy, which also applies to projects (this is not surprising because projects are one way strategy is executed):
“People aren’t the core reason why strategies fail. Of course they are part of the dynamic, but we often look to blame people as if that’s the whole story. If only it were that simple. When failures happen, I have seen that there are persistent, telltale patterns. As I visit company A in the morning, Company B in the afternoon, and Company C later that same day, day after day for 10 years, I see the failures are not simply isolated human missteps that can be avoided in the future by replacing one or two individual. Instead, the issues are subtle variations of systemic problems. Some problems are dominant in one set of companies, the others are dominant in other firms, but the same few crop up over and over. This is great news, because in the failures we can study the systemic issues, understand them, and create a new how to go forward”
It takes a lot of courage and self discipline to show up to a PIR meeting ready to fully contribute and have the though and frank conversations that need to take place. The type of conversations that, no matter how tough they get, remain deeply rooted in love, respect, and compassion for others.
Instead, in most project people show up with their defenses erected and ready to fight back. There is so much concern nobody looks bad at the end that the PIR outcomes become so vague and diluted that they become useless.
If we are not going to do the PIR right, then like you said just “let it RIP and don’t worry about the PIR”.
Cheers,
Samad
Samad, thanks for the reference, I’m always on the look for quality books to read. Any other recommendations will be welcome.
Cheers, Shim.