Good question. What is Project Management in the absence of the tools of project management. A schedule, a set of requirements - even emerging requirements. A budget. A set of processes that control these things through a Change Control Process. The processes of Project Management. Like the ones found in the Nine Knowledge Areas of PMBOK.
So when someone talks about project management in the absence of Project Controls, what are they actually talking about. Are they talking about something other than project management?
Just spent the morning helping a colleague work through some negative slack in a several 1,000 line schedule, so we could start running Monte Carlo Simulations to confirm there is sufficient schedule margin to protect the deliverables, given part performance of the Work Packages.
Is this project management? No not really. It's scheduling. But the "management" of the project depends on this information. Actually it's not really "information" in the traditional sense. It's a model of the activities of the project. In this case a sub-set of the project.
All Models are Wrong, Some Are Useful - George Box
Without the model, how would a project manager make decisions. Guesses? Magic Beans? Hope?
I haven't heard from the "we don't need project controls" crowd, but it'd be interesting to see what they've got to replace a credible schedule, measures of physical percent complete, assessment of project deliverables maturity, risk retirement and mitigation plans, and the constant feedback needed to provide input corrections to the work efforts to keep on schedule, on budget, and on specification.
