Overcontrol

Project Quality Assurance is a tought necessity. While it would be better for an organization’s project management processes to be sound enough to do without additional checks and challenges, for Project Managers to have a bullet-proof toolset to prevent quality-related issues, this doesn’t seem to be the case at all times.

There is a flipside, however. It’s easy to formulate standards and requirements, and expect PMs to abide by them. The PM herself is controlled – documentation reviewed, milestone timeliness checked, risk completeness assessed etc. These standards have the tendency to change often once QA teams start to operate. It’s not enough to deliver – the “how” matters too. The caveat is that documentation is a secondary project management activity – producing docs does not equate the completion of a project and such “artefacts” are created by one PM sparringly throughout a given year. The PM is rarely an “expert” here. QA teams, on the other hand, specialize in the kinds of documents they review, plus they review them on a regular basis.

A Project Manager is tasked with making things happen, first and formost. A certain degree of formalization is often required to ensure standards are met, safeguarded by Quality Assurance. But it is well worth to consider supporting the PM rather than dinging him or her for non-compliance.

No limit to efficiency?

I got fooled. I tought there was no limit to efficiency. I was wrong. And it’s not simply the inability to do faster or more things at once. You can process things faster, to some extent. You can do more, but only to a certain degree. There is a price in the long run and that is something we tend to ignore. When dealing with people, pushing the effectiveness bar too far and overloading the employee might influence the atmosphere at work, result in burn-out, and generally — decrease job satisfaction.

Every knowledge work needs introspection — the time & space to… 

  • Incorporate new knowledge
  • Build on latest experiences
  • Link between different domains
  • Gain strength to improve further

Routine helps greatly. It creates space. But most important is to simply allow time. To limit work in progress. To allow play.

Many words have been written & said about the “myth of 100% effectiveness.” I have learnt my own share and cannot stress how destructive this kind of belief is. While adding to the burden helps improving one’s tools and processes to some extent, it destroys too much to be justified in the long run.