Project Management Lessons from a Magician

I recently finished reading Alex Stone’s intriguing new book Fooling Houdini: Magicians, Mentalists, Math Geeks, and the Hidden Powers of the Mind in which he traces his steps along his path of becoming a magician while providing interesting insights into the world of magicians and mentalists. I had no idea as to the numerous magic societies and annual magic tournaments held all over the world!

You may be asking yourself how a book about magic could possibly be related to project management. Although I am sure most experienced project managers would agree that at times it seems like magic to make a project come together, there is no magic to project management. In fact after reading this book it is clear that we should never introduce any magical tools or techniques into our project management processes. On the other hand both magicians and project managers need to step back from their tools and techniques and remember it is critical to make their audience care. Let’s start by looking at the technique of misdirection.

The Art of Misdirection
You may not be surprised to learn that magic is not really magic at all, but a series of very clever and well planned techniques. Magicians who perform feats such as making objects disappear and then reappear are practicing the art of misdirection. Misdirection is performed by capturing the audience’s focus on a particular object or other distraction while the true ‘magic’ is happening somewhere else. Many psychological studies have shown that when we focus on a particular task our brains can become blind to the other stimulus, especially visual.

As Stone points out, a magician’s wand is not really an object of power but part of the misdirection. The twirling of the wand is meant to hold our attention while the object in question is being moved around outside of our cognitive vision. The next time you are watching a magic act, focus your attention not on the where the magician wants you to focus (i.e. the wand) and instead watch their other hand.

Unfortunately I have seen misdirection occur in a variety of forms on projects but the most common and potentially destructive are those involving project status and solutions.

The Project Status Misdirection

It seems that the most common type of misdirection on projects involves status reporting.  Too many projects have either run into problems or have problems compound because for whatever reason the project manager simply chose to ignore or failed to communicate particular issues or risk. The main cause of this is when a project manager, either intentionally or due to inexperience, will fail to discuss risk or issues that will affect the project with the team and sponsors. When this occurs intentionally it is a disservice to the project management profession and these project managers should be identified and sentenced to guessing people’s weight or barking for the Yak woman at carnivals, as Cousin Eddie would say.

Seriously, an issue or risk will not resolve itself if it is ignored. Even worse we cannot make a significant issue or risk simply not impact the project by not alerting our sponsors and stakeholders. If the project manager does not create an atmosphere where issues can be addressed with their sponsors and stakeholders, how can the project manager expect team members to report tasks and issues to them? During project status review meeting, project managers should never hide or avoid addressing issues or risks by misdirecting participants with fancy Gantt charts, burn down charts or the typically useless list of tasks accomplished this week.

Too many project status report templates bury risks and issues at the bottom, well under the typically useless list of accomplished tasks. Many years ago I changed the format of every project status report that I design to list the risks and issues at the very top of the report. This approach ensures that you never run out of time during a status meeting to discuss issues.

Create an atmosphere where people are free to address issues and risks!

The Project Solution Misdirection

Another less obvious misdirection on projects is those that involve the project solution. This misdirection will usually go unnoticed and is typically not intentional but can result in an organization wasting a lot of resources.

I am speaking to a trap that we all fall into when we keep our focus on the project objectives which can misdirect us from our business objectives. To clarify, a business objective is the reason the project has been initiated, to solve a business need or to act on a business opportunity. A project objective is focused on the particular product that will result from the project to fulfill the identified business objective. For example, a business objective would be to shorten the cycle time for delivering products to market. The corresponding project objective might be to implement a work flow software application.

During the course of the project we may encounter issues with developing the work flow solution which may result in cost or time overruns. We may find ourselves expending extra effort and time trying to overcome technical issues.

Projects will tend to overspend effort to overcome technical issues because we have become misdirected away from solving the original business problem. Remember it is not about the particular solution you are creating, it is about solving the business need.

When we encounter many significant issues on a project that result in delays we typically forget to take a step back and focus on the business objectives. If we took a step back we may determine that another solution will work just as well with less effort or that the solution we picked will not effectively work at all. The project manager needs to keep focused on both the project goals and the business goals to avoid potentially wasting resources due to solution misdirection.

Don’t let a particular solution distract you from achieving the business objectives!

Mentalists

I am sure we are all familiar with the branch of magicians known as mentalists; these are the mind readers, spoon benders, and fortune tellers of the profession.  Based on Stone’s book, the mentalist community contains both generalists and liars.

Have you ever had your fortune told or read a horoscope and wondered how the telling applied so well to you? This is likely because the statements are so generic that they can apply to almost anyone. As Stone says, mentalists know to be intentionally wrong about 15% of the time. From his book here are a couple of lines from a research survey.

You have a tendency to be critical of yourself.

You have a great need for other people to like and admire you.

See how generic these are? Most people would think these apply to them – simply amazing!

In the field of Project Management we must avoid being generalists. When providing project status don’t make general statements such as ‘the project is on target’ which can be applied to other projects. Be specific about your status, instead we need to say ‘the expected deployment date of December 31^st is still valid’. 

On the other hand when working with you team be specific about the information you are looking for, ask direct questions such as ‘Is there anything that you can foresee which may delay you in completing the provider data design?’ as opposed to ‘Hey, how are things going?’ Don’t get me wrong, there are times to casually ask how things are going, but be direct when you are in need of a specific piece of information.

Finally, yes Virginia some mentalists are liars. I don’t see a need to explain why project managers should not outright lie about their projects.  Let’s just move on to discuss why we need to make our teams care.

Remember, you are a project manager not a mentalist so stop trying to read minds!

Make Them Care

One of Stone’s goals described in the book was to earn a return trip to a major magic tournament and perform well (his first attempt was a total flop, which ended with the judges making his act disappear into thin air). Near the middle of the book Stone realizes that performing magic is not just about running through an act of magical tricks – magicians need to make the audience care. My favorite quote in the book is the following (with a bit of censoring):

“If magic is gonna work, the audience has to care about it, same way they have to care about a story in a play or sit-com. Otherwise it is just a (blank)ing card trick and who gives a (blank).”

This is a great reminder for project managers when working with their teams and stakeholders; so let's consider the following:

“If a project is going to be successful, the team has to care about it, same way they have to care about a story in a play or sit-com. Otherwise it is just a bunch of tasks and who cares.”

The take away here is that although project managers are always striving to develop new and improved tools and techniques we need to remember that it is critical to connect with the team and stakeholders in order to achieve project success as defined by the business objectives. I have found that most team members are at the same time assigned to other projects and tasks so it is the responsibility of the project manager to separate their project from the pack of other projects to help focus and motivate their project team.

Project managers can accomplish this in part by following the lead of successful magicians and do something the audience has never seen before. At times remember to plan periodic celebrations to mark project milestone, but don’t just invite the core project team, invite everyone who has had even a little hand in the milestone (and don’t forget to include support staff such as Help Desk!).  Also think about sending the entire team a survey and ask them how the project is going from their point of view. Do something totally unexpected from a project manager and ask team members what you can do to help them accomplish their tasks!

Don’t be afraid to find ways to make your project stand out while still sticking to the project management processes. Don’t manage a vanilla project. Vanilla is a nice flavor but typically does not get remembered, stand out or cause people to talk (required reading in the area of being remarkable is Seth Godin’s Purple Cow).

A critical step to making your team care is to periodically provide your entire team with the big project picture. I am shocked at how often project managers do not step back and show all team members where their contributions fit into the entire project. This is a good start but I typically take it one step further in order to increase the team’s level of caring.

Most modern experts in change management, such as John Kotter (The Heart of Change), and the Heath Brothers (Switch) demonstrate how appealing to emotions as a critical factor in driving change. The trick for project managers is to realize that most team members will not become emotionally attached to the product that the project creates. For example, I have worked on many IT system development projects but have not become attached to a single system.

Instead I become attached to the ultimate benefit that the product will produce.  For example I am currently working on a payment system for a large government agency. I can’t get too excited about a payment system, no matter how well designed. Knowing that this system will help provide much needed funding for programs to help people with disabilities find gainful employment is what drives me.

When you are providing your team with an overview of the project be sure to cover how the results of the project will serve the customer. If possible research and find an individual story that relates how a specific person will be or has been helped by the project. It was Mother Teresa who once said:

“If I look at the mass, I will never act. If I look at the one, I will.”

Make the outcome real to your team - this is a key to making them care about the project!

Conclusions

There is no room for magic in project management. Project managers need to stick to using the standard project management tools and processes and leave the misdirection and mind reading to the professionals. Keep in mind this does not mean you should avoid finding ways to make your project and its processes distinguishable from other projects.

Thanks to Alex for the entertaining look inside the world of magic.

As always please leave any and all comments, questions and criticisms. If I don’t like a comment I can always make it disappear! J