Nonlinear Work: Internal Interactions

If we think of a project and its people as a system, we can regard as external inputs the project charter, the project's requirements, and its resources. Changes in these inputs produce changes in the project's outputs. Consternation and frustration arise when changes in the outputs violate our expectations with respect to changes in the inputs.

As we've seen, nonlinear work doesn't always obey the superposition principle. That is, the result of two sets of inputs acting together is not always equal to the sum of the results of each input acting separately. This failure is one reason why our predictions of project results are so wrong so often.

Internal interactions within the project can provide another reason for our frustration. Here are three examples of internal interactions whose effects can dominate the effects of any change in project inputs.

Discovery

In the course of development, the project team might discover something that nobody knew or understood before work began. It might be an unanticipated obstacle (bad news), or a wonderful new opportunity (possible good news). Sometimes these discoveries lead to changes in requirements, even though no external agent sought a change in requirements. Whatever the discovery is, it can affect both project performance and project outcomes. And with alarming frequency, these effects can be far larger than the effect of any changes anyone — customer, manager, executive, regulator, marketer — might impose on the project. From this perspective, such changes come from nowhere.

Emergence

In complex The only real surprise in any
project would be the
absence of surprisessystems, emergence happens when many small identical elements of the system organize themselves into coherent behavior. For example, the organized movement of a school of fish is emergent behavior. Emergent phenomena are also observable in projects or portfolios of projects. When one task encounters difficulty, the consequences of that difficulty can propagate across the project, with the result that many other tasks find themselves in similar straits, resulting in a form of gridlock. This can happen at any time, in the absence of any external stimulus.

Outputs can change even when inputs don't

Even when none of the inputs have changed, mistakes, miscommunications, insights, and creativity can cause the outputs to develop along paths that differ from what anyone expected. This happens because the system contains more internal degrees of freedom than those that are specified by the inputs. We tend to call these unexpected changes "surprises," but the only real surprise in any project would be the absence of surprises.

Nonlinear work is frustrating not so much because it is nonlinear, but because we insist on believing that it is linear. We consider a project most successful when it behaves according to our expectations: no discoveries, no emergence, and outputs fully determined by inputs. It's a nice fantasy, but it's a fantasy nonetheless.   First issue in this series   Top    Next Issue

Are your projects always (or almost always) late and over budget? Are your project teams plagued by turnover, burnout, and high defect rates? Turn your culture around. Read 52 Tips for Leaders of Project-Oriented Organizations, filled with tips and techniques for organizational leaders. Order Now!

Your comments are welcome

About Point Lookout

Thank you for reading this article. I hope you enjoyed it and found it useful, and that you'll consider recommending it to a friend.

This article in its entirety was written by a human being. No machine intelligence was involved in any way.

Point Lookout is a free weekly email newsletter. Browse the archive of past issues. Subscribe for free.

Support Point Lookout by joining the Friends of Point Lookout, as an individual or as an organization.

Do you face a complex interpersonal situation? Send it in, anonymously if you like, and I'll give you my two cents.

Related articles

More articles on Project Management:

Start a Project Nursery

In a Project Nursery, professionals from across the entire organization collaborate to conceive of new projects. When all organizational elements help decide which projects to investigate, the menu they develop best suits organizational needs and capabilities.

The Injured Teammate: II

You're a team lead, and one of the team members is suddenly very ill or has been severely injured. How do you handle it? Here are some suggestions for breaking the news to the team.

Mitigating Risk Resistance Risk

Project managers are responsible for managing risks, but they're often stymied by insufficient resources. Here's a proposal for making risk management more effective at an organizational scale.

Missing the Obvious: II

With hindsight, we sometimes recognize that we could have predicted the very thing that just now surprised us. Somehow, we missed the obvious. Why does this happen?

Anticipating Absence: Internal Consulting

Most consultants are advisors from outside the organization. But when many employees are unavailable because of the Coronavirus pandemic, we need to find ways to access the knowledge that remains inside the organization. Internal consulting can help.

See also Project Management and Project Management for more related articles.

Forthcoming issues of Point Lookout

Coming January 29: A Framework for Safe Storming

The Storming stage of Tuckman's development sequence for small groups is when the group explores its frustrations and degrees of disagreement about both structure and task. Only by understanding these misalignments is reaching alignment possible. Here is a framework for this exploration. Available here and by RSS on January 29.

And on February 5: On Shaking Things Up

Newcomers to work groups have three tasks: to meet and get to know incumbent group members; to gain their trust; and to learn about the group's task and how to contribute to accomplishing it. General skills are necessary, but specifics are most important. Available here and by RSS on February 5.

Coaching services

I offer email and telephone coaching at both corporate and individual rates. Contact Rick for details at rbrenjTnUayrCbSnnEcYfner@ChacdcYpBKAaMJgMalFXoCanyon.com or (650) 787-6475, or toll-free in the continental US at (866) 378-5470.

Get the ebook!

Past issues of Point Lookout are available in six ebooks:

• Get 2001-2 in Geese Don't Land on Twigs (PDF, )
• Get 2003-4 in Why Dogs Wag (PDF, )
• Get 2005-6 in Loopy Things We Do (PDF, )
• Get 2007-8 in Things We Believe That Maybe Aren't So True (PDF, )
• Get 2009-10 in The Questions Not Asked (PDF, )
• Get all of the first twelve years (2001-2012) in The Collected Issues of Point Lookout (PDF, )

Are you a writer, editor or publisher on deadline? Are you looking for an article that will get people talking and get compliments flying your way? You can have 500-1000 words in your inbox in one hour. License any article from this Web site. More info