Are “Projects” Conversations, Too?

There is great risk of shark-jumping on the whole “…are conversations” concept, but there just might be something here worth exploring.

I have been thinking a lot about how projects get done, the many ways to manage one like OKR vs KPIs, or agile vs lean, all the different ways to keep yourself on track and get things done. A “project” could be the act of software development, or a product launch, or an office move, or an org-wide deployment of Vista, or what have you. Ok, maybe not an org-wide deployment of Vista, but you get my drift. The context might also not just span a single project, but perhaps an entire portfolio of projects that are competing for an organization’s (or individual’s) scarce resources. And this could necessitate the use of a wide range of project management tools, similar to those that you can learn more about here.

Nevertheless, the tasks, and milestones, and artifacts are all part of the infrastructure, but can one posit that the thing that really matters (and is currently completely, 100% ephemeral) is the conversations and collaboration between the project team members and the project management team. But the one thing that struck me during a conversation I had recently…the whole buzz around Cluetrain’s first thesis,”markets are conversations,” is really, really relevant in this context. Because, when you get down to it, projects are conversations as well. Also, communication is the key part towards an efficient team, if you’re soon to be heading a project you might want to look at courses like this efficient communication program provided by USC or other institutions.

Perhaps the traditional project management trappings are really simply low-level artifacts and surrogates that management twiddles in order to try to get to some sort of measurement…but perhaps the real value is in the conversation.

I bounced this idea off Demian Entrekin (disclosure: Innotas, where Demian is CTO, is a Cerado customer), and he pointed me to a piece he’d written back in 2006(!) that touched on this as well. Demian:

“Is the WBS [Work Breakdown Structure, a tool that shows all the tasks related to a project – ed.] a decomposition tool for understanding the ideal structure for a project, or is it a communication vehicle for teams to work together toward common goals? Sure, it can be both, but the question should not be too quickly answered and dispensed with. If it becomes more of a communication tool, as I would argue it is, then how must its behavior change?” (emphasis added)

Here’s Demian’s more exhaustive thinking on the subject.

So, what do you think? Are projects where stuff gets done a collection of artifacts? Or, perhaps, instead, are they instead a collection of collaborative acts based in conversation, out of which artifacts are produced?

Man goes in the cage. Cage goes in the water. Shark’s in the water.