When your company is struggling with projects, when all Project Managers are PMP certified, when every conceivable procedure seems to be in place, it is time to turn to The Fifth Discipline. No, this is not some kind of dark society. It is the art of creating a learning organization. Ever since Peter Senge put forth the idea of "five disciplines" in the early 1990s, business management thinking has not been the same.

This article takes a brief look at each of the disciplines espoused by Senge, which, according to him, are the hallmarks of a "learning" organization:

• Personal Mastery
• Mental Models
• Systems Thinking
• Shared vision, and
• Team learning.

In the backdrop of software projects, systems thinking, personal mastery and mental models work on the level of the individual, while the concept of shared vision and team learning have more to do with team dynamics. This is applicable for the project manager / leader as well as the team member. Every discipline will have relevant links to articles on Project Shrink, so you can plan ideas for improvement.

Personal Mastery

Photography by Mind meal.
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I love Big Hairy Audacious Goals (BHAG), the ones that are life changing, the ones that make your existence worthwhile, the ones that make you feel powered up like an energizer bunny. Goals like the one Al Gore is presenting in his "Challenge To Repower America":

"Power all US energy within 10 years with non-carbon based fuel" or "100% Clean Energy in 10 Years".

WOW. Now THAT is a goal. A big one. A hairy one.

Of course, I can complain about him not including the rest of the world. I could look under every rock trying to find small dubious details about Big Al's motivations. But as Ghandi put it: "We must be the change we wish to see." And I think, Project Managers must be the change if we want to reach goals like this one.

Entrepreneurs see the opportunity.
Venture capitalist provide the money.
Scientist invent the breakthrough.
Project Managers kill the thing by providing "the proper process"… Death by compliance.

We as Project Managers have to rise to this occasion. Why does this matter?

People will turn to us to get thing done. We are the Getting-Things-Done-Squad! We have to drive these changes trough the swamp of corporate and global politics; we have to go full speed with zero-visibility; we have to make it all fit together in the end. There is no time for ass covering, compliance-for-compliance-sake, review-upon-review, no-you-cannot-change Project Management.

Be the change. It matters.

For me, THE most influential book of the first half of 2008 is definitely "The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable" by Nassim Nicholas Taleb. Craig Janet reminded my with his post yesterday of this book, and the fact that it was due time to give it also some blog time on Project Shrink.

Photography by JL2003.

When you have seen only white swans in your life, you think "all swans are white". But it might be that you haven't seen every swan on the planet yet, and that a black swan exists, but only that it is very rare. Taleb defines a "Black Swan" as an highly unlikely event, but with an enormous impact when it occurs.
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It has been almost ten months since I outlined my last model of Project Management. The importance of having some kind of mental image about projects and Project Management may not come as a surprise. We are long due for an update on how I think everything links together.

Photography by Elvire R.

People Operating In A Group

Whatever your take is on projects, at the end of the day it is just a bunch of people working together to achieve a certain goal. During this endeavor they laugh, cry, pull pranks, play dirty tricks and have all other kind of behavior towards each other. If you are lucky they even work to reach the final goal. If you take everything away, and put people in the center of what a “project” is, you will see a group of stakeholders interacting with each other, just like any other group of people would do.
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Of all the resources utilized during a project, the team working on the project is the most complex to manage. When motivated, your project team can take up Herculean tasks and not break a sweat but when things go wrong there is little saving the ship unless you find a way to change course in time. Motivation is a complex art, while the rule of the thumb is appreciation and reward, the same incentives do not work on all individuals.

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