(2004-02-04) Macomber Pm State Of Art

Hal Macomber questions Russell D Archibald's definition of the State Of The Art of Project Management, and offers some contrasting views. The emperor has no clothes. Our process mentality towards project management comes up short. Certification that someone knows a body of knowledge has nothing to do with delivering successful projects.

Update: David Schmaltz questions the same essay. Archibald's piece does not speak to the art of project management at all, but to the business of it. It reads like a wealthy collector describing the art business, not like the observations of any practicing artist... No artist mistakes habit for discipline or tactic for judgment because neither resolve their essential dilemmas. Yet our work - our lives - continually challenge each of us in ways our habits and techniques ignore. Our work requires answering essentially unanswerable questions which simple habit or remembered technique cannot resolve.

• in the same issue of that newsletter, David decides that he will no longer call his services Project Management Consulting. He is now labelling his work as Brief Consulting, echoing the Brief Therapy/SolutionFocusedBrief Therapy area of practice.
  • or you could just ask a duck.