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Author: George Pitagorsky

George Pitagorsky, integrates core disciplines and applies people centric systems and process thinking to achieve sustainable optimal performance. He is a coach, teacher and consultant. George authored The Zen Approach to Project Management, Managing Conflict and Managing Expectations and IIL’s PM Fundamentals™. He taught meditation at NY Insight Meditation Center for twenty-plus years and created the Conscious Living/Conscious Working and Wisdom in Relationships courses. Until recently, he worked as a CIO at the NYC Department of Education.

What a Project Manager Does: A Multi-Faceted Role

Written by George Pitagorsky on . Posted in Articles. 3 Comments on What a Project Manager Does: A Multi-Faceted Role

Whether you select and manage project managers or you are one, you need to know what everyone thinks the PM role is. Without a mutually accepted role definition, there is a high risk that the wrong person will be chosen to play the role; there is likely to be disappointment and conflict.

On the surface, a project manager’s role seems easy to define. PMI says, “Project managers are change agents: they make project goals their own and use their skills and expertise to inspire a sense of shared purpose within the project team. They enjoy the organized adrenaline of new challenges and the responsibility of driving business results.”i Change the word project to program and the same can be said for program managers.

As they say, “The Devil is in the details.” Go beneath the surface and you can see that the project manager role changes from situation to situation. Sometimes the project manager is leading the project by setting direction, motivating the stakeholders, making architectural and strategy decisions, resolving conflict, and exercising authority. In other situations, the project manager may be coordinating and administrating while an architect, strategist or leadership team makes the key decisions that drive the project.

Related Article: The PM and BA Role: A Deeper Dive

When you are staffing your project, be aware of the role you want the PM to play and why you want them to play that role. Then get the right people with the right skills and personality.

The Project Manager Roles

When we take the PM role apart, we have these facets. Each is a role in and of itself. A project manager need not play each of them, though they all must be played:

  • Direction
  • Administration
  • Facilitation
  • Communication

In addition to these roles, project managers may play others. They may act as performers of any kind – business analysts, technical writers, etc. – depending on the needs of the situation.

Direction and Authority

Direction is associated with thought leadership and authority. Every project needs a clearly defined direction and a clearly defined director.

In some projects or programs, the PM acts as chief architect and strategist with the power to make decisions regarding compliance, quality, and technical direction. On a surgical team, the lead surgeon decides whether and when to operate, where to cut, how to proceed, etc. They direct the rest of the participants.

In other situations, an individual or a small (two or three person) team may play that role. That was the case in the Manhattan project where the scientist, Oppenheimer, and the Project/Program Manager, Leslie Groves, shared the role.

Some project managers may have authority to make spending decisions within a budget, and others may have to go through multiple levels of approval for each expense.

Plans, objectives, quality criteria, standards, methods, designs, and process, are subject to approval or may be developed by the director. For example, the director would have the authority to take an agile as opposed to a waterfall approach to the project.

While the director may not have the ultimate authority, there must be some. Major decisions, where major is defined for each situation, are escalated to executive sponsors or higher-level authority, everything else is under the authority of the director. Clearly defining this authority at the earliest stages of the project avoids conflict later. Everyone knows whom to go to for what decisions and what decisions they can make on their own.

Administration

Administration is the application of tools and techniques to plan, monitor and control the project or program. The project manager is responsible for making sure that there is a plan and that the plan is kept up to date so that at any point in time it is an accurate prediction of the outcome.

The administrator must have strong knowledge of the nuts and bolts of project and program management – creating a charter, assessing and describing roles and responsibilities, establishing a communications plan, using the tools, task analysis, scheduling, budget creation and management, resource planning, data collection, reporting, and change, issues and risk management.

The administrator may be responsible for creating the project management process or following an existing one, with more or less flexibility.

Administration is where project managers spend most of their time. Overall administration can take around 10% of total project effort. That’s about half a work-day per person per week.

The administrative role, particularly in large complex programs, may be performed by more than one person. For example, a person from a finance group, with budgeting, accounting, and financial reporting may be responsible for budget management. The project manager, in that case, would be responsible for integrating budget data collection, reporting and analysis into the big picture of the project as a whole – providing estimates, authorizing and making expenditures, and comparing how much has been spent to what has been accomplished. While two people may be contributing to the task of administering the budget, they must be unified in playing that role.

Content management is another part of administration. It is to make sure that documents are stored and managed in a way that enables easy access and effective collaboration. In a large program, a librarian, reporting to the PM would take on that work.

PM administrators are not the only ones involved in project administration. Each performer is responsible for reporting their time spent on tasks, accomplishments and issues. This often involves attending status meetings, preparing status reports and posting issues and change requests.

Part of the administrator’s job is to make life as easy as possible for the project performers while providing all interested parties with a clear and accurate picture of what is going on and what they might expect going forward. The effective performance of the administrative role will leave an audit trail – a history of the project.

Making life easy for the performers means establishing processes that take minimal time and effort to submit time and progress information, address risks and issues and to prepare reports. Without this information, the PM administrator cannot do their job.

Facilitation

Facilitation literally means to make things easy, or at least as easy as they can be. The facilitator is a guide; a neutral party, who works to help people come to a common understanding of their objectives, plan the way to achieve them and execute the plan.

For example, a project manager playing the facilitator role will help a performer, team or team leader come up with a realistic schedule, considering task dependencies, estimates, risk assessments and resource availability. The facilitator does not do the planning or execution. That is the job of the performer or team lead. Though, the facilitator may also be playing other roles and be a team member or performer.

The facilitator together with the administrator provides systems and procedures that make administrative and direct content work productive.

A project management process that uses toolset that enables a single entry of time, cost and task data and generates status reports at multiple levels of detail would facilitate administration. It removes the need for each performer to write a status report while enabling a clear picture of what was supposed to happen, what really happened, how much it cost, etc. Of course, no tool is yet able to say the cause of whatever occurred. The system would facilitate easy recording of the causes of slippage. The facilitator makes sure the data is used in performance analysis and future planning.

Communication

Communication is a foundation for the other three aspects of the project manager role. It is through communication that direction, administration, and facilitation are carried out. It is the connective tissue. It involves reporting, building and maintaining relationships, transferring knowledge, diplomatically and objectively navigating accountability and quality assurance, and more.

Any PM must be able to communicate well. At the same time, part of the communication role can be performed by a designated spokesperson.

Conclusion

Know the nature of your PM role to make sure you have the right people with the right skills in place to play that role.

Be creative. Adapt the role to the people available and the needs of the project. For example, if you have a great administrator who doesn’t have the capacity to direct, craft your team to make the best of the situation. Define roles and assign performers, so all of the facets of the PM role are covered to accommodate project needs and consider individual capabilities

References
[1] http://www.pmi.org/About-Us/About-Us-Who-are-Project-Managers.aspx

Managing People and Expectations

Written by George Pitagorsky on . Posted in Articles. 4 Comments on Managing People and Expectations

Clearly, managing people is the single most challenging part of managing projects, if not managing life in general. This article delves into how to do it well.

I once decided not to manage anyone anymore. Super intelligent and capable people were irrational and acted like babies or teenagers. Some people were nice, but not as competent as I wanted them to be. Others were very competent but had no people skills or were lazy. Few could handle criticism.

My favorites were the highly competent, easy to work with, self-aware and self-managing ones. Give them a direction or goal and they just get it done, while keeping everyone informed and using best practices. No drama. Adaptability. Flexibility. Motivated by quality and service. People oriented. Emotionally intelligent.

Related Article: Managing A Virtual Project Team

What I learned in the years since then is that:

  • You can’t really get away from having to manage unless you go and live in a cave and meditate all the time.
  • We are all on a continuum regarding intelligence, motivation, skill, relationships, emotional maturity, and self-awareness.
  • The effective manager works across the spectrum, adapting to the needs of each person, accepting imperfection while promoting optimal performance, and recognizing when individual weaknesses or misdirection warrant intervention and dismissal.
  • Managing is a wonderful opportunity to practice being mindfully aware, patience and selfless service.

There is a blending of analytical objectivity, like Vulcan side of Mr.Spock, and a heartfelt understanding of other people and their nature, wants and needs.

Managing

Let’s define terms. What do we mean by managing? To manage, according to a few dictionaries, is to: 

  • control dominate, influence, handle, govern, be in charge
  • succeed in the face of challenges
  • take charge or care for and make decisions for
  • direct a professional career.

Everyone manages something. Individuals manage themselves while project managers manage projects and CEO s manage organizations.

On the surface management is pretty clear – take charge and get it done. However, in practice, issues arise around how much control, domination, caretaking and decision-making one should do and how best to do it. Egos are involved. The complexities and uncertainties that come with relationships with other people require artful management.

Managing Well

Managing adds value, though, remember, it is not direct performance. Direct performance is what results in useful outcomes. Managing is an enabler that improves direct performance and the probability of success.

For example, a manager will create an environment in which performers have all they need to do a great job and are minimally weighted down with administrative and management chores.

The effective manager tries to put himself out of a job by setting up a process by which a person, team or organization can manage itself. The process promotes the definition of clear, rational expectations – product and performance objectives and clear roles and responsibilities. The process ensures that acceptance criteria are known and accepted. Status reporting is regular and accurate, reflecting current effort against a plan. Issues, risks, and their resolution are tracked. Transparency is valued.

The process identifies the flaws. No one has to point fingers; the facts say it all. Task X is late and over budget, it has been in that state for weeks and keeps getting delayed. The responsible party, seeing his own performance reflected in the numbers, can raise the red flag himself and ask for help. The manager the issue is addressed.

Accountability and Criticism

Accountability is a key factor. Management process makes sure that individuals are accountable for their work and behavior. Most people don’t mind that when their work and behavior are positive or when referring to someone else.

Unfortunately, accepting criticism with the deep understanding that it is through criticism that one can improve is not as prevalent as it could be. Many people are defensive, fearful of being disciplined, and as unskilled at giving as taking negative criticism. People are often afraid to speak up.

The effective manager makes it clear to the people who report to him/her that they are all peers with different roles to play. He promotes critical feedback and expects it to be offered constructively. He expects people to request help when they need it and to speak their mind.

The effective manager also accepts that while all these best practices are great, they are not always perfectly executed. Imperfection is a fact of life. As managers, we must be ready to adjust mindfully to any condition, any set of relationships.

Expectations, Kindness, and Clarity

With accountability comes the challenge of handling people who do not meet expectations. The following questions are meant as a starting point for ensuring that you are mindful while managing your team and yourself.

In teams, whether you are a manager or not, you have expectations regarding another person’s performance, personality, appearance, relationship and communication skills. What are your expectations based on? Is it wishful thinking, perfectionism or a professional standard?

Does the other person know what your expectations are? Are they reasonable and likely to be met.? What will you do if they are not met? Does the other person know that? How will his knowing it effect his performance?

Do you play favorites? What happens when someone you like is having a hard time getting his work done? What happens when you don’t like someone who is having a hard time? How do you differentiate between a novice and a senior worker who lack skill and need support?

Are you happy to help? How does it feel when you have to fix up someone else’s work, without taking credit for it?

The degree that you can support people you don’t like is a measure of your maturity.

Does the desire to get ahead by showing others up drive behavior and the ability to help others perform? Do you get some pleasure out of pointing out faults? Do you acknowledge the positive?

Do you believe that everyone should be perfect or as at least as good as you are or were when playing his role? How does that drive your attitude about your own work and the work of others?

Management Action

A healthy team adjusts to support members’ weaknesses.

However, there is a point at which a weak performer must be removed from the team. Kindness and acceptance lock horns with practicality driven by analytical clarity. It costs the team too much, and it is promoting acceptance of mediocrity rather than optimal performance. The better performers are grumbling, maybe thinking “why should I work so hard when so-and-so is not pulling his weight?”

At this point, you as a manager must act to show the team that you recognize the situation and are doing something to address it. You might have to eliminate the individual or shift roles and responsibilities. The performer may respond badly, or not. Either way, the effective manager will handle it, with an attitude of kindness and compassion. You will minimize any embarrassment.

Manage Well

Managing

  • Involves questioning your beliefs and attitudes, recognizing how they affect your performance.
  • Is founded on the recognition that you are there to serve the performers so they can do their jobs with minimal interference and maximum effectiveness.
  • Works best when you rely on process rather than your personal charm and authority.

Mindful Leadership: Striking the Right Balance

Written by George Pitagorsky on . Posted in Articles. 3 Comments on Mindful Leadership: Striking the Right Balance

Leadership is a complex process that involves visioning, directing, motivating, and enabling oneself and others to achieve objectives and make the vision real.

Managing complexity requires stepping back, mindfully accepting things as they are and relying on gut feel and letting go into the flow. While logic and analysis are powerful and useful attributes, they have decreasing returns as the complexity of human relationships increases.

Leadership takes place at different levels and is often shared among people working together. In a group, one person may be the thought leader, coming up with the vision while another takes on the leadership role of motivator and enabler. At different stages of a project, there may be a shift in leadership from one person to another. For example, one person might do well as the leader of a project just starting up, doing well when there is less structure and greater need for creative planning and design, while another does better when the program becomes more stable and requires plan maintenance and managing the longer term relationships during execution.

Related Article: Forget Project Management & Embrace Project Leadership

Need to elevate your leadership skills?  Check out these Leadership courses.  New, from Project Times!

Leadership and Authority

Leadership is not the same as hierarchical authority. A leader may be the subordinate of their manager. Because of their leadership qualities an individual may naturally take the leadership role or part of it. The effective manager, exhibiting their own leadership skills, will enable the natural leaders to arise and be supported. Each person can become a leader in their domain. As individuals, we are responsible for leading ourselves – setting a vision, directing, etc. A small team requires internal leadership as much as the large organization or program.

The less effective manager may create conflict by holding onto an authority position that they confuse with leadership. This conflict suppresses the natural process in which merit, as opposed to authority, drives performance. For example, a manager degrades team performance when they mandate their own design concept over a subordinate’s far better design. However, this is a tricky area. Subordinates may hold back from commenting on or offering alternatives to their manager’s ideas. To counter this, the leader may want to offer their ideas later, giving subordinates the ability to put forth their ideas first. This tactic, though, has its drawbacks. When the leader with authority is faced with ideas that are objectively substandard, a good deal of extra time and effort may be spent in coming up with the best way forward by refining or replacing the initial ideas.

Note the difference between hierarchical authority and the type of authority that comes with proven accomplishment in a field. When one is an authority on a subject, their content carries weight, as opposed to their position in an organization, their rhetoric or their relationship to people in power. In the end, content makes the difference. The leader enables the team to assess the content objectively, regardless of its source.

Working with What You Have

A leader must assess and work with the real capabilities of his team, recognizing they are just another member with a role to play. In many projects, team members are assigned rather than selected. The leader will adjust roles to accommodate the team members’ strengths and weaknesses. They will have the hard conversations to address weaknesses. For example telling a key person that they will no longer have a role that they value but do not have the capacity to handle. The effective leader will practice patience and do their best to bring people along.

It is necessary for a leader to know when to use authority and how best to do it. When a leader sees that the team is not performing optimally or is moving in a wrong direction, they need to do something. With or without authority, doing something means creating awareness and communicating the issue objectively, with sensitivity, as well as coming up with proposed solutions. The leader can rely on the group to decide and make necessary adjustments.

What if the group does not address the issue or addresses it unskillfully, perhaps getting into divisive blame games or simply misunderstanding the issue?

If this occurs, the leader with authority steps in and increasingly uses her authority, like a beneficent dictator, enabling the group for the sake of achieving the goal. The leader without authority may have to accept the dysfunction and make the best of it. Making the best of it includes influencing the others, setting a good example, or just getting one own work done as best as one can.

Adapting to the Situation

Leading is the art of adapting fully to the needs of the situation. Applying direct authority may be the right thing to do in a group having weak internal leadership, communication and relationship issues, or misunderstandings about vision and goals. Direct use of authority may also be warranted when time is short, and responses must be quick and right.

Applying authority in healthier groups becomes less necessary as the strengths and weaknesses of the participants are recognized, accepted, investigated and balanced within the group.

Note that even when one has authority, it is best to use it as a last resort. It is far more effective to treat mature and capable subordinates as peers.

According to Lao Tzu, the Taoist philosopher, “The best leaders are those the people hardly know exist. They act without effort and teach without words.” The wise leader recognizes that she does best when she takes the role of a selfless servant, let’s go enough to allow the natural flow to take its course, finding the right balance of yielding and directing when necessary.

Self-awareness

Perhaps the most difficult aspect of leadership is recognizing one’s own limitations. Objectivity, when it comes to oneself and one’s ideas or judgments, is a challenge. When there are objective criteria and time to apply, it is easier. However, even then there is a struggle to accept that one’s own ideas are suboptimal. At the same time, it is necessary to accept the reality that your idea is superior when you think it is. A big part of effective leadership is recognizing that in projects, and business in general, the majority does not rule. Often, a minority of one has a superior concept or understanding than the majority. It is the leaders job to make sure the most effective plans, designs, and approaches prevail and the people think “we did this ourselves.”

The leader’s ultimate goal is to make sure the team achieves its objectives, optimally. To do so, the leader must balance gut feel subjectivity, with analytical objectivity. They must apply sensitivity as well as direct confrontation. Self-awareness, cultivated by mindfully and objectively observing feelings, words, and behavior and their effects on self and others, is essential. It provides the subtle knowledge needed to apply the right type of leadership at the right time with the right people.

Meetings: How Can We Make Them Better?

Written by George Pitagorsky on . Posted in Articles. 4 Comments on Meetings: How Can We Make Them Better?

Imagine yourself sitting in a meeting, hearing a colleague drone on about some detailed topic that you don’t really care to know about,.

The meeting is beyond the agenda that you thought would be covered, and the meeting is running over the time you planned to use to accomplish a task that requires your full attention and has a deadline.

How pleasant is that? How productive?

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Meetings are a part of life. There are millions of them. According to the online media provider Fuze, more than 65% of meetings are failures, costing organizations $37 Billion per year1. People say “They’re boring. They’re useless. Everyone hates them. So why can’t we stop having meetings?”2

Why are they useless and boring? Does everyone hate them? Why? How can we make them better?

Who Goes to Meetings

Paul Graham’s perspective on meetings involves a split between managers and makers. He views meetings as useful, saying that Managers require meetings to do their jobs. “But there are Makers too – poetic souls whose well-being can be shattered by an ill-timed “sync,” … They require “Maker hours” – long unspoiled afternoons … rich, solitary, germinative time. … Makers flourish in four-hour long stretches, which absolutely must … be kept unblemished by meetings.”3

Being both a manager and a “Maker” I can relate to and accept that perspective. Solid solitary time for creating and relieving stress is a critical success factor. So are the right meetings at the right times.

If we include work sessions in which two or people collaborate, there is another class of player that the Manager/Maker model leaves out – the analyst/designer who by the nature of their jobs must combine meeting time and “Maker” time. The analysts and designers have meetings for the purpose of accomplishing creative work in groups rather than meetings in which managers initiate, plan, prioritize and monitor. Analysts need to meet with subject matter experts, designers, and developers. Designers and problem solvers co-create, validate and present solutions in meetings. Analysts and designers also need “Maker” time to complete their work.

In addition, there are meetings which cut across the Manager-Maker-Analyst-Designer spectrum. These meetings are forums for raising and addressing administrative and interpersonal process issues. These are often the most difficult to arrange and manage and can be the most valuable.

Are Meetings Really Useless?

Are meetings useless? Some are, and some aren’t. Useful meetings resolve issues, keep people abreast of what is going on, do things that require collaboration and promote healthy teamwork.

There are also useless meetings.

A meeting is like a project; it is useful if it achieves the meeting’s objectives. If the objectives are to inform people of a project’s status and issues and to promote group ownership of the project, then there is success if people come away knowing what’s going on and they have a sense of being on the same team. If the objective of another meeting is to make decisions about a business process or system function, then the measure of success is a clear, written statement of the decision or the open issues. If the meeting wasn’t useful in achieving some business related or project related goal then, even if the meeting’s objectives were met the meeting was a waste of time, a failure.

Why are meetings boring?

Are meetings boring? Some are, and some aren’t. The boring ones are the ones that are not meaningful to you, where you don’t care about the content and where you are not paying attention.

If attendees are the right people, and they know why they are there and what is expected of them, that stimulates interest and motivates the attention that defeats boredom. Make sure you facilitate to stop long-winded detours into the weeds when the meeting is about the bigger picture.

If you do get invited to a meeting that you have no interest in and you can’t opt out, you can make the best of it by being mindfully aware of what is going on, including your boredom. In other words, make yourself interested in the meeting, as if you were going to be tested on the content and asked to critic the way the meeting was held. If you can, informally and subtly facilitate to avoid the causes of boredom.

Why does everyone hate them?

Does everyone hate meetings? Some do, and some don’t. Most people hate being bored and wasting their time in useless meetings. They hate meetings that interrupt and keep them from doing their “maker” work on schedule.

The Causes of Useless, Boring Meetings

Everything has a cause. Finding the cause is a critical step to finding a solution.

Why are so many meetings failures? Here are some common causes.

  • Lack of clear objectives, agenda and expected time per topic
  • Not sticking to the agenda
  • The wrong participants
  • Unprepared participants
  • Multi-tasking and otherwise being disengaged
  • One or a few people monopolizing the meeting
  • Lack of a written recap or minutes
  • Tantrums, tirades and other emotional outbursts

Can you think of others? If you can send them in and we can add them to the list.

How can we make them better?

To make them better overcome the causes of useless, boring and meaningless meetings. If you organize meetings:

  • Make sure they are aligned with organizational and project goals to accomplish something meaningful.
  • Clearly state the agenda and objectives.
  • Invite the right people and let them know what is expected of them.
  • Set and stick to a reasonable duration that matches the agenda.
  • Facilitate so that one or two people do not monopolize and so that the meeting stays on topic and at the right level of detail.
  • Arrange a suitable and comfortable meeting environment, whether virtual or physical
  • Recap regularly.
  • Ensure that there are minutes to document the meeting and a plan to act on decisions and address open issues.
  • Have a little fun, or, at least, don’t make the meeting an unpleasant chore.
  • Evaluate your meetings from time to time to see if they are good ones and if they are getting better.

As an individual attendee, take responsibility for paying attention and making the best of it even if you think the meeting is a total waste of your time and you cannot escape. Given the choice between sitting there bored and fuming or mindfully paying attention so that you are using the time and experience productively, why would you choose bored and fuming?

[1] http://digitalsynopsis.com/tools/meetings-are-a-waste-of-time/
[2]NY Times Magazine Feb 28, 2016, “Meet is Murder” by Virginia Heffernan, p. 29
[3]NY Times Magazine Feb 28, 2016, “Meet is Murder” by Virginia Heffernan, p.30

Be Open-minded: Cultivate Both-and Thinking

Written by George Pitagorsky on . Posted in Articles. 2 Comments on Be Open-minded: Cultivate Both-and Thinking

I recently received a post that advised organizations to transform from profit to purpose, hierarchies to networks, controlling to empowering, planning to experimentation, and from privacy to transparency1 .

While I can support the spirit of such a transformation, it struck me that this statement was one more reinforcement of either-or thinking – an approach that sows the seeds of misunderstandings and creates unnecessary conflict, gridlock, and suboptimal action.

Either-or Thinking

Either-or thinking sees things in black and white terms. It sets up a zero-sum game in which there has to be a winner and a loser. It leaves no room for shades of gray. As project managers, business analysts and others who are responsible for implementing change in complex organizations we need to come to grips with the reality that there are few, if any, blacks and whites. There are shades of gray, changing from situation to situation.

The analytical mind is comfortable with either-or thinking. The analytical mind compartmentalizes, putting things in neat, discrete categories. This can be very useful. It enables clarity and understanding.

However, it is also dangerous. It leads to models that look and sound great but do not reflect reality. The analytical mind, the left brain, tells half the story. The right brain is where the nuances are processed. The right balance between analysis and the recognition that the real world is filled with paradox, unclear boundaries and uncertainty is necessary.

Either-or statements cause misunderstandings. Take, for example, the effect on a profit-oriented executive of saying you want to transition from profits to purpose. The executive’s success is based on bringing in profits. You immediately lose that guy’s support when you give the impression that you want to replace profit as a motive. How much more will you win him over if you said that you wanted to enhance the ability to make profits by focusing on purpose?

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You lose the finance, project management and QA people as soon as you say you are going to swap controlling for empowerment. You lose the program manager and PMO leader when you say you want to replace planning with experimentation. You turn off the security officer when you recommend an end to privacy.

Let’s give the authors the benefit of the doubt and assume that they did not mean to replace the from’s with the to’s. They just didn’t go to the trouble to explain that what they really meant was to transition from blindly pursuing profits to recognizing that profit comes about when a purpose is fulfilled and that planning can coexist with the experimentation that is needed to come up with the best design and which is curtailed by the kind of controlling that disempowers people. You want profit and purpose; control and empowerment.

Either-or thinking is a bad habit. It oversimplifies things. It removes the most interesting aspect of decision making – finding the right balance among the various options to come up with win-win resolutions, right balance and hybrid solutions that are far better than the alternatives.

Both-and Thinking

Both-and thinking is the alternative to either-or thinking. The authors of the Agile Manifesto expressed their understanding of this by saying “we have come to value:

  • Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
  • Working software over comprehensive documentation
  • Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
  • Responding to change over following a plan.

That is, while there is value in the items on the right, we value the items on the left more.”2

Note the difference. The fathers of agile development weren’t saying to replace documentation or contracts; they were saying to proceed wisely – where wisely means in a way that is most likely to satisfy the needs of the situation at hand. They recognized that there was a need for processes and tools but without healthy interactions among individuals the best processes and tools would be ineffective.

Why Does Either-or Thinking Persist?

Both-and thinking is open-minded. It promotes healthy conflict and problem solving rather than tugs of war or arm wrestling.

It is clear to those who know how to get things done that a situation appropriate approach is necessary. In a project, there may be a time and place for experimentation. It doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t plan. In fact, even experimentation requires planning. There is a place for the right kind of documentation. You don’t replace contract negotiation with collaboration; you need both in the right measures. In fact, a well-developed contract, created through collaboration, enhances the collaborative effort required to get the job done.

If that is so clear, then why are we so frequently faced with inflexible either-or thinking? We see it in politics, religion and in business. It is a great source of conflict and suboptimal performance. Yet it persists.

It persists because people want simple certainty. Ambiguity tolerance is low. People want to stay within the confines of a Tweet because few have the patience to read or listen to long-winded statements.

It is much easier to make a point about the need for experimentation if you stay away from the messy reality of having to decide when to experiment and when to fix a scope and time. It is too confusing to have to explain the relationship between profit and purpose or planning and experimentation.

Both-and thinking is particularly challenging if you are dealing with “true believers” who only see things in black and white terms, or pretend they do to make a point. Some people are convinced that their beliefs are the only right beliefs, and they are too insecure to test their beliefs to see if they are really mutually exclusive to other beliefs.

What You Can Do

When faced with an either-or pronouncement you can check the facts. You can ask questions to clarify and seek to understand what the authors of an either-or statement really mean – do they blindly believe that what they are saying is the one exclusive truth and that other views are wrong or are they open to exploring how their position and the needs behind it can coexist with other positions?

You can avoid making statements that lock you into an inflexible position. You can avoid believing in simplistic explanations and solutions for complex problems. And, you can avoid dismissing points of view that are at odds with your own without first seeing how the two can be reconciled.

Often the most effective solutions emerge when the best parts of competing plans or designs are combined into a synthesized result. This synthesis requires an open-minded attitude that includes stepping back far enough to be objective rather being blinded by the desire to have one’s own position win out over the alternatives. So, step back. Question your beliefs. Take the time and effort to assess how what you say will affect others.

To promote both-and thinking, you can remember that there is a difference between your position and beliefs and the reality of the situation at hand. Remember that while there are zero-sum games in which only one position must prevail, often positions that seem to be mutually exclusive are not.

Whenever you say or imply either-or, see if you can replace it with both-and.

1 from Thought Works attributed to Tammay Vora

2 http://www.agilemanifesto.org/