I read an interesting blog by Jim Scheel’s titled “We’ve been Managing

Software Development all Wrong” and it got me thinking about
project management models and the discussion about PMBOK
or PRINCE2 or Agile… and I immediately think that the
whole concept of which model is right or wrong is misplaced.

I think the whole project management discussion and process
would do much better if it took lessons from music.

That probably sounds strange, but let me explain.  In my life, I’ve had the
opportunity to play classical music, play rock and roll music
at clubs and parties and with Elvis impersonators, and jazz with
people like Benny Goodman.

They all are different styles of music, they represent certain differences
and certain parallels in getting from the start to the end of a piece.
They all have a place, serve a function, have a following.  You wouldn’t
typically say one is right and one is wrong- just different.

If you compared music to project management, you might say both
are a way of organizing people and their actions to generate certain
outputs.  Yikes that sounds detached.

What I’m getting at is this:
Playing music is roughly equivalent to project managment.

When playing classical music, you play what’s written, so that dozen’s of
people can all produce and finish largely an exact copy of what was
originally penned.  Very structured.  Very defined.  It is akin to one form
of project management as perhaps best applied to producing known
outcomes.

In playing the blues, you usually are working over a 12 bar chord
progression, with a particular use of thirds and a base pattern that
gives it that unmistakeable “blues” sound and feel.  It is much less exact
or prescribed than classical, yet it has a defined sequence and feel
that has to be created for it to sound “right” to the listeners.  Again,
it represents a different form of project management.  One that allows
more latitude, but still moves through various phases or gates.

When it comes to playing jazz, or any genre for that matter, there’s lots

of room for freedom of expression, interpretation, adaptation, how long

you play the song (e.g. how many repeats), what exact chords you play from

verse to verse, and for adapting to the unexpected…

Jazz is still music, the players still work within a structure, they still start
and stop and they still produce an intended outcome.  But if described in project
management terms, it’s a very different model, perhaps more like Agile
than PMBOK (classical).

Bottom Line:
Project management and playing music have some strong parallels, and
my perspective is that project management would benefit from embracing
the fact that there are different styles or forms of project management, just as

there are different styles or forms of music.

Part of the differentiator seems to be how much the project is to be a
replication of defined, known requirements, versus an improvised creation
with a roughly defined outcome (e.g. let’s play Stella by Starlight in 3/4
instead of 4/4, key of G, you take the first chorus and we’ll finish by playing
it one moretime through from the top).

Perhaps the less we know of the exact outcome and all the obstacles we will
have to overcome to reach that outcome, the more project management
needs to move from a classical to blues, to jazz orientation.

Links:

Does Project Management Inaccurately Represent Work

Flexible Project Management Software

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