Wednesday, August 15, 2007

Complex Problem Management From My Alma Mater

One of the most wonderful places where I ever committed consultancy was PA Consulting Group.

I still had hair, was in the midst of transitioning from pure telephony into distributed computing/networked computing. PA was rocking & rolling in the United States, and brought a hugely successful history of management consulting from the "scientific management" school.

I learned from silverbacks such important koans as "a good manufacturing facility is an undramatic manufacturing facility," which gives one a new perspective on the "hustle and bustle" of work which is, in fact, churning.

I picked up a piece by PA Consulting:
Conventional project management techniques are unsuited to complex projects that behave dynamically and often contain considerable rework.

More at PA Consulting

Netting it out: the article provides a worthwhile taxonomy for figuring out "whazup".

Other lessons learned from PA: minibar operations principles, the difference between cabinets and closets, and project fu.

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