A recent conversation on New Grange suggested there are two basic type of people in the world of Project Management (or possibly management in general).
- A group that sees everything as new. It is a religion and nothing we say here will change them.
- A group that regards history as the true basis of all knowledge and can see how today's points are simple extension (of this history).
How, er, Black and White. Those who see newness in many things are somehow religious fanatics about this newness?? Those with the proper historical perspective are enlightened to see that the past contains all the elements of the "truth." What is the "truth" anyway and why do we care really? Is PM a religion?
This 2nd view of course just as bogus as the 1st view. Neither view owns the "truth," since in management science there is no "truth," there is only experience, usually anecdotal experience, and many times severally limited anecdotal experience - usually called but rarely identified as "personal opinion."
So where is the "truth" in this matter. And for that matter what the heck is the question that the truth is supposed to be answering? Here's a question or a set of questions?
- Can we learn from the mistakes of the past?
- Can we learn from the successes of the past?
- Is there a science or baseline theory of how to manage a project?
- Are the project management methods of today better, worse, different, or the same from the past?
- How long ago (in units of measure of decades) is the past?
- How long into the past should we look before we can call it the past? 2 decades, 5 decades, 20 decades?
- Why does this have any import for today's projects?
- If we knew the differences or similarities, what would we do with this knowledge, other than to acknowledge that we now know something new about something old?
- And if we knew that, would we know how we put this to work on real projects at real companies with real people?
It is highly unlikely that Group 2 - those with insightful knowledge of the "truth," actually have such knowledge outside their own personal experiences or a small list of processes they have successfully put to work.
It is just as unlikely that Group 1 (in the extreme) also has a corner on the "truth," since the world of management science (also know as operations research in some quarters) is ever changing, not a science like physics, and has no verifiable underlying theories or axioms - just informed opnions.
Group 2 claims of course there is "nothing new," (or at least everything looks like it is old) which is just a silly as claiming everything is new.
In the end the "practice" of Project Management is what counts. Since there are few if any "theories" of Project Management, practice is all we have. Remember the role of theory is to predict outcomes that have yet to be observed. That is theory drives experiment. Experiments to verify a theory. Experiment in the absence of theory creates the need for new theories to match the data from the experiment.
What I found most interesting in this brief exchange is how strongly the Group 2's felt that the "truth" is in the past.
A better statement might be "the past informs the future."
And leave it at that. Everything else in the practice of project management is anecdotal, experiential, pragmatic, with only a small hand full (5 or less) fundamental principles.
