This Focused Performance Weblog started life as a "business management blog" containing links and commentary related primarily to organizational effectiveness with a "Theory of Constraints" perspective, but is in the process of evolving towards primary content on interactive and mobile marketing. Think of it as about Focusing marketing messages for enhanced Performance. If you are on an archive page, current postings are found here.
Sunday, January 11, 2009
Project Monogamy, Revisted - Serial Monogamy Project Participation is an important post from Johanna Rothman. Success in projects in an organization is less about how the individual projects are managed than about how the multi-project system of shared resources are managed.
What I’m finding interesting in my work is that people who have some slack can commit to one project much more easily than people who are 100% “committed” to a project. The people who are 100% committed have no slack to provide other projects some consulting or provide future projects some thinking. The people who are only 80% committed to one project (and not committed to something else, slack is key) are more able to finish their work and accommodate the inevitable interruptions.
When people multitask, they are not committed to a project. They have no slack. They have no time to innovate. They are always behind."
Not only do resources need slack, but project promises need to me made in a way that includes "slack", allowing for those times when things don't go as planned and for those times when one project impinges on the progress of another.
The behaviors and expectations that Johanna describe allow that latter situation to happen less frequently.
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