![Two U.S. Army soldiers use binoculars and a riflescope to watch for insurgents Two U.S. Army soldiers use binoculars and a riflescope to watch for insurgents](../images/reconnaissance.png)
Two U.S. Army soldiers use binoculars and a riflescope to watch for insurgents downrange as they conduct a combat patrol near the Syrian border in Iraq on March 6, 2006. Patrol is a variant of "reconnaissance in force." Photo courtesy U.S. Department of Defense.
Turning the car key in the door lock, Marian was relieved that they'd finally agreed to get out for lunch, because she wanted a change of scene for the conversation she and Kevin and James were about to have. The door locks all clicked open, and the three of them hopped in.
"Where to," she said.
Kevin answered from the back seat: "You have to ask?"
Marian looked up at Kevin in the rear-view mirror. "Just trying to give you an opportunity for input," she replied. At the end of the loop road, she turned left towards Mike's, where they always went for lunch when projects were in trouble.
James began immediately. "I wish we'd found out about the Georgetown products before we did the Pyramid modules — we wouldn't be here now. But how could we have known?"
Kevin, of course, had the answer. "They could've told us," he said dryly. Marian and James laughed weakly.
"Yeah, there is that," Marian said. "But they've done this to us before. You'd think we would have learned by now."
Projects are full
of surprises — that's
what makes
them projectsIndeed. Projects are full of surprises — that's what makes them projects. Still, we can reduce the incidence of surprises by cleverly sequencing the project's tasks. Here are some tips for using schedule to manage risk.
- Avoid the logical-order trap
- Some projects impose a logical order on task sequence. A building, for example, has to have its foundation in place before the first structural elements go up. But unless the laws of physics intervene, keep an open mind about the order of things.
- Exploit leverage
- Give preference to tasks that reduce costs, either because they spin off tools you can use, or because you can learn something valuable, or because they provide a morale boost.
- Delay creating what you don't need
- Building or designing something before it's needed creates constraints through commitment. Delaying preserves flexibility.
- If you think something might be difficult, find out early
- Schedule the solutions to unsolved problems so that bad news arrives early, when you have time to sort out alternate approaches, and before other elements impose constraints.
- Use reconnaissance teams
- Designate teams to perform reconnaissance in force, looking for traps before the main body of the project reaches them. Give these teams enough budget to run tests that reveal weaknesses before you've made major commitments.
- Avoid resource optimization
- Shortening the critical path by optimizing resource allocation is a risky strategy. Most development projects aren't predictable enough for this kind of fine-tuning.
- Get comfortable with placeholders
- We use placeholders when scheduling requires them, especially in the critical path. But building placeholders is a wonderful way to reconnoiter — to find out about trouble early. Use them more often.
You can do the same things when you read. Sometimes reading the end first gives you a useful mental framework for the beginning and middle. If you're doing that right now, I hope you enjoy reading the beginning and the middle of this article. Top
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Related articles
More articles on Project Management:
Backtracking in Incremental Problem Solving
- Incremental problem solving is fashionable these days. Whether called evolutionary, incremental, or
iterative, the approach entails unique risks. Managing those risks sometimes requires counterintuitive action.
Design Errors and Group Biases
- Design errors can cause unwanted outcomes, but they can also lead to welcome surprises. The causes of
many design errors are fundamental attributes of the way groups function. Here is Part II of our exploration.
Managing Wishful Thinking Risk
- When things go wrong, and we look back at how we got there, we must sometimes admit to wishful thinking.
Here's a framework for managing the risk of wishful thinking.
Seven Planning Pitfalls: III
- We usually attribute departures from plan to poor execution, or to "poor planning." But one
cause of plan ineffectiveness is the way we think when we set about devising plans. Three cognitive
biases that can play roles are the so-called Magical Number 7, the Ambiguity Effect, and the Planning Fallacy.
Vendor Mismanagement
- When we outsource knowledge work to vendors, we expect to achieve the desired result with less risk
and uncertainty than if we did the work ourselves. But mission creep, mission retrenchment and employee
capture can lead to less welcome results.
See also Project Management for more related articles.
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