Tell Me What I Say

Two thousand years ago, Jesus of Nazareth, a poor Carpenter's son, led a movement that is still found in the world today. He taught his disciples to "Love One Another" and to "Render Unto Caesar That which is Caesar's"

Most agree that he was promoting a new religion of peace and love, and extorting his followers that while they may owe money, allegiance, and even violence to the state, in their inner lives they were to be men of peacefulness and brotherly love.

1100 years after Jesus left, European armies invaded the Middle East after being told by their Christian leaders that it was the right thing to do. Instead of loving one another, the church was promoting violence against their fellow human beings.

Flash forward to the end of the 18th century. George Washington was president. Unlike most military leaders in his day, Washington had no desire for fame and glory, and did not want to remain in power past his turn.

Paraphrasing George, he said something like:

"Don't do anything special for me after I'm gone," he begged, "I don't want any monuments or anything of the sort"

100 years later they built a big freaking stone tower in the middle of Washington, DC pointed at the sky. Nope nothing big for old George. Today the national mall is so full of monuments it's become a tremendous problem.

In both of these examples, thought leaders tried to warn the organizations they formed of the perils ahead but nobody was listening.

Several years ago, I worked on starting a big government project. After a few months of getting a good general direction, we insisted on meeting the command staff for a briefing on where the program was going. I didn't know if we were on the right track or wrong track, and I thought it was important to find out.

At the end of the presentation, a couple of the major decision makers came to me and told me we did a good job. I said something like "You guys are the boss, whatever you want to see we're here to make it happen."

They then said something very interesting, which I didn't understand at the time. They said something like "What you're doing is fine. All we ask is that we're kept in the loop and told what's going on."

Eight months later I sat in the program manager's office and begged for updating these people with what had changed. Over that time, the program had been scaled down significantly and nobody wanted to tell anybody they didn't have to. (for fear of looking bad). My request was denied.

Like my mom used to say, it's never the thing you think it is. Who would have thought that a country built on equal values and a disdain of nobility would end up with forty-thousand monuments and senators who spend more than 50 years in office? Who would have thought that a religion built on love would end up with such militaristic tendencies for a couple of hundred years? Who would have thought that key decision makers would not stay informed?

As project managers, a lot of times we acknowledge the major project risks: scope creep, poorly defined requirements and acceptance criteria, rosy-scenario project schedules. But it's the ones that come out of left-field that we just don't get.

When I invented the MAT, a tool to measure what's screwy with a project long before it fails, one of the things I kept finding over and over was that just because somebody says it, doesn't mean that it's sinking in. It sounds crazy, I know, but I have seen it over and over again. I've done it myself. Are we really listening?