Scheduling is Dead, Bring on Chaos; So Says A Foremost Scheduling Expert

Project scheduling has no future whatsoever, and this comes from no less than Murray Woolf, the Managing Director of the PMI College of Scheduling's Scheduling Excellence Initiative (SEI).

This article, posted at PMForum is one of the better ones I've seen in a while (possibly because it's aligned with my philosophies). The premise is that, in today's day and age, the industry is headed toward more of a "give the people objectives and let 'em work it out" philosophy, which is completely opposed to the old "build a detailed schedule and make 'em follow it" mentality.

This is completely aligned with a value system that I've long subscribed to (and had posted on here at PMThink), and that is: To foster passion and accountability, we need to provide:

- Autonomy and Trust
- General Guidance and Principles
- Support and Removal of Barriers

This, of course, must be supported by having clear objectives.

Through all this, we also need to send a message that results are more important than blindly following rules. This doesn't mean that we needn't have processes, as people need a system in order to achieve consistent results; merely that we should give project managers the freedom to bypass certain processes if it's necessary to achieve good results. "Good" is the operative word here. Just meeting a date is not "results."

I believe that Mr. Woolf's article endorses my approach, and acknowledges that the following is where the future of project management is:

More organized chaos than it is controlled components.
More project facilitation than it is project scheduling.

This doesn't mean that planning isn't important either; merely that the act of planning shouldn't be confused with rigidly following the plan/schedule. As Dwight D. Eisenhower said, "Plans are nothing; Planning is everything."

As it is, and as Mr. Woolf rightly points out, project managers and "schedulers" are so bogged down in details and administrivia that they become more project reporters than managers. We need to observe where the future is headed and free project managers from the burdens of such fruitless details.

Instead, their efforts should be spent on adequate preliminary research, communication, facilitation, risk awareness, and other traits necessary to effectively manage a project.

For the full article, which I highly suggest reading, see Mr. Woolf's paper below...

PMFORUM, Connecting the World of Project Management - Papers