by Dermot Mccabe

Created on: June 30, 2008

Basics of Project Management

I can't really remember the number of "methodologies" and "tools" I've tried to use in a long career of project management in Broadcast Engineering. I know I have discarded a lot of them but there were some fundamental ideas and values that seemed relevant. It is probably ego that has compelled me to attempt to support my suppositions from disparate sources totally unconnected with project management. All I can claim is that they have been helpful to me in my endeavours as a project manager.

Communications and the Old Testament.
We can learn a very important lesson about project management, and how crucial communications is, from the Old Testament. Genesis 11:1-9 tells us, "Now the whole earth had one language and few words. And as men migrated from the east, they found a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there. And they said to one another, 'Come, let us make bricks, and burn them thoroughly.' And they had brick for stone, and bitumen for mortar. Then they said, 'Come, let us build ourselves a city, and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves."
Well God was not too happy with this: men were getting a bit above themselves. So he decided to scupper the project. He didn't use the standard method of Fire and Brimstone, Floods, Locusts or Plagues. No, He used a much more subtle but devastating method: He had them all speaking different languages: " And the LORD said, 'Behold, they are one people, and they have all one language; and this is only the beginning of what they will do; and nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them. Come, let us go down, and there confuse their language, that they may not understand one another's speech." And of course the project failed and was abandoned. So, there you have it: a lesson from God: communication is essential.

Clarity and Lotfi Zadeh
Very closely allied to communications is clarity. It is truly amazing how different people can read different meanings from the same set of words. It is the project manager's job to ensure that there are no such misunderstandings. A very unfortunate but not untypical scenario in many projects is the accusing finger pointing at some team member accompanied by the words, "I thought you meant ..." An insistence that everyone engaged on a specific project adopts and understands a set of established industry or business standards will massively diminish this type of problem.
However, the question of clarity when

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