Pragmanagement

Ok folks, I'm sick to death of Project Management. It doesn't work. It's the Total Quality Management concept of the 80s revamped, retreaded, and resold. It's lame lame lame.

The worst part is that it's not even a real business discipline. I mean, it is, when you look at it, and it works fabulous if it's practiced. But in reality, it's nothing more than a RELIGION. Project managers are the priests, and the team members that have to follow the PM laws? They're the heathens being forcibly "converted" on pain of getting a poor performance review.

The PM ship hasn't sailed yet, but it's definitely at the dock and the captain's ordering the ship hands to throw off the docking ropes. Project MAnagement Institute did an awesome job marketing their Project Management Book of Knowledge (PMBOK) to the feds, and now every federal contract requires a PMP certified Project Manager on staff. So we know they'll be around for a while yet.

But the sad truth is that when business people saw that, they went out in DROVES to get their PMP, not to learn how to run projects efficiently to best practices so that their company could save money and tehir projects would succeed, oh no. They did it to be more marketable and to have more earning potential. Some managers got it just to be chic. Others got it because they saw that someone with a PMP after their name got more respect and authority, and they coveted that. But every person who studied the PMBOK and took the test who didn't buy into the belief system, anyone who didn't Come to PRocess and be reborn, everyone who got the certification and then kept doing things badly, each of these people is personally responsible for ruing project management for the rest of the world.

The company I work at has a million PMPs in middle level management. They spent millions developing a "project management life cycle" and all the supporting processes and integrated it into their SDLC, but not one of the bastards thinks it's anything more than fluff to be ignored. Why? Because they don't follow it, the project fails, and then they say, "well we have PMBOK compliant processes, but the projects failed anyway, so it doesn't work." NEver mind that they failed to follow processes. And the VPs don't know any better than to believe their Directors, so this idea that PM is worthlesss gets traction, and the buzz becomes the reality.

What we need is somone with the Economic Fortitude to come up with something better. Somewhere out there someone is working on the replacement "paradigm" that will take the place of Project Management. I hope it get phrased in language people already use instead of developing a specialized vocabulary. I hope it's so easy a 2nd grader can do it. I hope they're brilliant enough to make a fortune off of it.

My idea for a replacement is "pragmanagement." It's pragmatic management. You do what works and you do it simple. You have small teams, with small deliverables, and you use the cheapest, simplest tools available to finish the project. You don't use Oracle and Informatica and Business Objects Universes on the same project, oh no.

KISS Management.