I have a love-hate relationship with project management.
But it’s 95% hate.
It’s OK, I’m a grown-up and I don’t show it. I do what needs to be done, I show up at the meetings, complete the tickets, update the statuses, I keep people in the loop.
Inside, though, my inner teenage anarchist is ranting and rebelling.
Probably more, the better and more professionally the project is being managed.
Notice, in my list detailing my compliance, there’s no mention of the actual work being done.
Project management is not the work
A conversation a few days ago is typical, while trying to get to the bottom of a conflicting requirement.
“How’s it going?”
“Well, yesterday we had meetings all morning about what needed doing, then there was the admin, and the one-to-one meetings in the afternoon that were booked in the morning. And then today they ask me if I’ve done the things we agreed yesterday.”
Which is a silly question. There wasn’t time.
A few years ago I read an influential essay that pinpointed this problem in general, talking about how the work is never just “the work”.
There’s getting the requirements for the work.
Agreeing the work.
Preparing for the work.
Being distracted from the work.
Checking queries about the work.
Documenting the work.
Keeping others updated about the status of the work.
Revising the work.
Admin around the work.
Getting the work approved.
And so on.
All of which doesn’t contribute to the actual results anyone wants, and which are what gets measured and tracked. But many of which are necessary, and few can be avoided. That’s just how things are, and part of the skill of work is knowing it, accepting it, and getting better at making it all happen without too much drag.
The problem is that project management is all that kind of thing, and often someone’s sole job.
The map is not the territory
In theory, this is a good thing.
The idea is that someone takes all of that work-that-isn’t-the-work, and leaves others free to do the work. By specialising in it, they can do it better, leaving the whole team much more efficient. Great.
But there is now someone whose entire role is all the things that specifically aren’t getting the work done. And it’s very difficult indeed to look at things the same way from that vantage point.
Already in most projects, the project is not the result. It’s a means to an end. That means that the work that is part of the project is only important as it enables the result. So the work that is not the work is only important if it enables the work that enables the result. And each layer risks that overall aim being lost, to the point that it’s very nearly inevitable.
A completed task isn’t in itself of any value until what it achieves is in use.
A tickbox that says that the task is complete isn’t of any inherent value at all, is it? It may be necessary so that the various tasks can be coordinated, but necessity is not value.
But to anyone managing a project, some form of tickbox is usually all they can see. So it’s very easy to slip into the mindset that it’s the tickboxes that count. That the marking of progress is the actual progress. Which is a subtle problem, but a real problem.
The beatings will continue until morale improves
When you start to assume that markers of progress are progress, the work that isn’t the work … stops being that, and becomes the work. As indeed it is for a project manager. Although not for others.
So it seems entirely reasonable to refine those markers, add different update stages, levels of status, responsibilities, whatever. Without them, it’s difficult to be sure what the markers of progress are. Everybody needs to know which tasks are behind, and by how much, and where the blockages are going to be, and who is going to need to fix them.
And as the person in charge of all the work that is not the work, working harder (which is good, right?) means doing more of this. Not just taking the load off the people who need to do the actual work by relieving them of the need to do work that is not the work, but creating new work that is not the work, because that’s the job. All in view of making the work that is not the work better.
The endpoint of all this is a project that’s falling behind, so new meetings are added into the schedule to discuss how to catch up, which nobody wants to attend because it uses time that they could have spent trying to catch up.
And this is a clue to why there are such wildly different attitudes to meetings and management tools, for example, between the workers on a project and those managing it. For the team, they are work that isn’t the work. For management, they are the work, and when the chips are down and everybody needs to work harder, meetings and management tools are what they have to work harder on. When a hard-pressed worker is called away from what they’re trying to achieve to attend an urgent meeting, the meeting is what the manager is being paid to do.
It’s an unusual manager who can both be aware of that and know how to fix it.
So project management should be abolished?
It certainly sounds as though I have nothing good to say about it, doesn’t it?
But here in the real world, we do need project management. I’d add “unfortunately”, but that probably goes without saying at this point. But we do need it in most cases.
That, I’d guess, won’t soothe the ruffled feathers of any project manager who may happen to read this and is feeling very offended and misunderstood, and wanting to explain that this is nothing like what they do. To anyone like that: I know, I get it, but it’s very important that what I’ve detailed here is exactly how project management feels to those within it.
So … project management is terrible and obstructive, but also vital.
I can’t help feeling that there’s a clue there.
Going faster in the back seat
Project Management, with capitals and full professional status, is a victim of its recognition. A project manager who is “in charge” is automatically putting the work-that-is-not-the-work ahead of the work. And arguably the most effective way to do the job is the opposite.
The ideal team, at least for me, is one with no control at all. Where everybody is capable and trustworthy, everybody knows what they need to do and is able to do it, everybody trusts everybody else to do what is needed, and consequently it is all done. So nobody needs to manage it.
That never happens, at least outside enthusiast projects. So management is the next best option.
But when a manager is consciously aware that they’re not the ideal solution, more of a reluctant necessity, paradoxically they can do their job better and become close to ideal. Often by doing less, but more surgically.
As an example, when some ticketing tool is being used, and it becomes clear that updates are not happening, the default reaction is to insist that it’s essential and use carrots and sticks to try to get the tickets constantly current. Or tinker with the tool, adding extra reminders or pop-ups or friction so that people interacting with it are forced to do certain things.
In reality, this is a powerful signal that work-that-is-not-the-work is driving the work, instead of the other way around. And the effective reaction is to use ingenuity to find some way to rely on the ticketing less. Fewer steps, fewer categories, possibly, lower complexity and demand somehow. The people doing the work aren’t saying in words that their valuable work time is being reduced by tasks that aren’t part of it, but their actions are saying so regardless.
More meetings, finer control over ticketing workflows with more detail, make this worse rather than better.
The very best project management feels like no project management at all.
And achieving that takes a combination of supreme skill and humility, which is very rare, but can always be aimed at as the ideal. Too few will, because it’s tough on the ego to do an important role invisibly, and unfortunately poorly rewarded, because that’s what the world is like.
In many ways, there’s a lot to learn from that about a lot more than just project management.