Bas de Baar discusses Project Management in a global, mobile, virtual and multi-cultural world. 
Three Sphere Project Management: Using All 3 Parts of Your Brain
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This is not for you, but for those other PMs. Of course.
ARE YOU ALL OUT OF YOUR MIND?
YOU ALL AGREE THAT "PEOPLE PROBLEMS" ARE OUR BIGGEST ISSUES AND THEN YOU START FUMBLING WITH THE ITEMS YOU FIND IN YOUR BIG SHINY PROJECT MANAGEMENT BOX.
ARE YOU NUTS?
I know that if you only have the left side of a brain, the only job you can perform is Project Management. This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t even try to use the rest of your brain.
Left side: Logical, Sequential, Rational, Analytical, Objective, Looks at parts (source)
Makes you proud to have a hyper developed left part, not?
In an earlier post this year, Richard Bernheim reflected on the issues that a PM has to deal with:
"Ernst & Young and numerous others state that there are three categories of Project Management issues:
- People-related issues which on average represent 80%
- Process-related issues which on average represent 10%
- Technology-related issues which on average represent 10%"
Mix that with increasing complexity, uncertainty, mobility, flexibility and diversity of our projects and surroundings, and your left brain will come up short … BIG TIME!
80% of our issues are in an area where our left brain sucks!
We need to invoke all three parts of the brain: left side, right side and heart!
Right side: Random, Intuitive, Holistic, Synthesizing, Subjective, Looks at wholes
Heart: Passion, Emotion, Inspiration, Feeling
For this you are going to need major brain surgery!
Hack The Man. (or woman, although their internal wiring is better suited for 3 Sphere Project Management).
This is not about expanding the PM discipline, this is about enhancing PM people.
Seek to understand.
How to hack the brain of a Project Manager? It took me a while to figure it out, but the answer is coming soon.
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Bas,
Amazing statistic from Ernst and Young - but matches the project management reality in my world. Thanks for the laugh and the kick in the pants.
Alec
[...] But I do think that if we want to train the mind of Project Managers and bring it more in line with Three Sphere Project Management, improving spontaneous decisions is a good [...]
Hello Sir, I don't have as much experience in PM as you even then I feel that one cannot the enhance PM people without expanding the discipline. I will hold my words back till you post something more on this topic.
hello sir, i don't have as much experience in pm as you even then i feel that one cannot the enhance pm people without expanding the discipline. i will hold my works.
Hi Anukalp, don't sell yourself short, it is a valid question: not everything a PM does is included in what the majority of the people consider the "PM Discipline": e.g. leadership is essential, but not really a PM discipline.
But, in the end it is splitting hairs. What is in the name. It is important we start using all our capibilities, regardless how we label them.
We agree, … partially.
80% of the issues we face are best addressed by whole brain thinking.
There will often be a left brain response, but in 80% of the cases, it will be distinctly sub-optimal. And I'm less than positive about the value of applying passion to the analysis of an issue. Implementation can benefit from passion, but passion, applied too soon, can be another path to a sub-optimal response.
Actually, I have no idea if the number is 80%. I suspect that it very much depends on the context. 80% is a good "working" hypothesis, but don't bet too much on that exact percentage.
This whole line of thinking leads me back to Gerry Weinberg's observation that every problem a consultant faces is really a people problem.
And it reminds me of an early database selection exercise that I ran in the early 1980s. This was back before everyone was using a relational database. After a detailed, competitive bake-off, it came down to the values that the stakeholders were using to evaluate the alternatives. It was ultimately a people problem. In all my consulting since then, it's almost always a people problem that is at the heart of every challenge facing business.
Why would you expect project management to be any different?
Hi Robert, of course, one should not take the 80% too serious as you point out. And yes, indeed, the passion is included for thinks like leadership, trust and empathy. Thank you for sharing the "database selection" example… it really is always a people problem
Check out this excerise (it's fun):
Which Way Do You Spin? Left Brain or Right Brain?
http://lateralaction.com/articles/left-brain-or-right/
[...] and globalization. And of course another zillion aspects. We should be getting PMs using all three parts of their brain (left, right and heart). That might not be the "pure" Project Management discipline curriculum. Who [...]