Project management as an organisational capability · Appendix
Sources of thought
Six sources have shaped my thinking. I list them here so that you can understand where the terms of this publication come from, even if you have not read the books.
Two sentences up front. These are sources of thought and not evidence. Only one of them rests partly on experimental research, and even there with limitations. Where I describe something as backed by evidence, I rely on studies and not on these books; they are listed under “Evidence, theses and open questions”.
Jim Collins: Good to Great
What the book says. Collins studied companies that made the leap from good to outstanding performance over a number of years and compared them with similar companies that did not make the leap.
What I adopt:
- the idea that technology accelerates and does not trigger,
- the climate in which the truth is heard, with the four habits that go with it,
- the logic of comparison, that is, the habit of saying what something was compared with. (Chapter 8)
What I do not adopt. The method as proof. According to the critics, it lacks scientific rigour, the design is susceptible to confirmation bias, and the selection was made on the basis of the outcome. Several of the companies studied later failed. Collins explains this by their departure from the principles, which is plausible but not an independent confirmation.
Stephen Covey: The Speed of Trust
What the book says. Trust is not a soft issue but a factor of speed. Where it is lacking, everything becomes slower and more expensive. Where it is present, much can be done without safeguards.
What I adopt. The idea that trust arises from experience and not from assurances. It underpins my approach of making a collaboration tangible in practice early on, in a clearly limited first work step.
What I do not adopt. The claim to measurability. It is a management book of the same kind as Collins's.
Steve de Shazer: solution-focused brief therapy
What the approach says. Anyone who wants change does not have to dissect the problem. Instead, they describe the solution. The miracle question invites people to imagine a future in which the difficulty has been resolved.
What I adopt. The attitude that the means for the solution are already present, and the second perspective in Chapter 11.
What I do not adopt. Dispensing with understanding. De Shazer works with people on change. These pages are aimed at people who decide on an investment, and that decision needs an understanding of the connections, otherwise it is not their own.
The potential view
What it says: you look at what exists and ask
- what is good and should be preserved,
- what is good and could become very good,
- what is weak and deserves strengthening,
- what may go or is missing.
What I adopt. The first perspective in Chapter 11 and the basic attitude of this publication: it does not begin with what is missing.
What I do not adopt. Nothing, but I do not claim any evidential force either. It is an attitude.
Simon Sinek: the Golden Circle
What the book says. Effective organisations think from the inside out: from the Why through the How to the What.
What I adopt. The basic idea of the sequence. (Chapter 5)
What I do not adopt. The breadth of the terms. I define them more narrowly; here the How is governance. The exact distinction is in the glossary. There is no strong empirical basis for the Golden Circle.
Daniel Kahneman: Thinking, Fast and Slow
What the book says. Human judgement follows patterns that are useful in many situations and systematically misleading in others.
What I adopt:
- The inside view versus the outside view, and the planning fallacy.
- The conditions under which intuition is reliable, from the joint work of Kahneman and Gary Klein. Projects meet these conditions poorly, because every undertaking is different and feedback comes late. That is not a weakness of experienced people but a property of the task.
- Sunk costs.
- The observation that confidence is read as competence. (Chapter 8)
- Gary Klein's premortem, which Kahneman recommends. (Chapters 5 and 11)
What I do not adopt:
- The chapter on priming. A review of the studies cited there arrived at a very low estimated probability of replication, and Kahneman publicly admitted to having placed too much trust in underpowered studies.
- The pair of terms System 1 and System 2. I do not use it; it is worn out in consulting language.