Circular reasoning
Use the technique of system thinking to test the following circular reasoning: “Adding more people to projects causes slow projects to delay even more.”
- Explore this reasoning by drawing together with a few people on a large piece of paper. Draw a circle in the middle with “Delayed Project.”
- Draw another circle with the measure “Add More People.”
- Adding more people to a project means more coordination and alignment. Draw a circle with “More Coordination and Alignment.”
- Draw another circle with the measure “Add More Project Control.”
- More project control leads to more steering and accountability information. Draw a circle with “More Steering and Accountability Information.”
- Indicate the effect of all these measures on the delayed project by drawing arrows between the circles. Place a plus or minus next to each arrow. Plus stands for a positive effect, minus for a negative effect.
- Discuss together the effect of more coordination and alignment and more steering and accountability information on the delayed project. Does this make us slower or faster? And why?
- What we often see when a project is delayed is the choice to add more people to the project. This puts us in an endless loop that will only delay the project more. We want to break this circle.
- Discuss together: what can we do differently than adding more people and more control? Usually, the opposite is needed to break a pattern. For example: what if we make smaller, more stable teams that largely control their project themselves? Self-organization, in other words. Could that help speed up a project? And what if we no longer did projects but brought the work to these self-organizing teams? Would those teams be able to deliver faster with an effective, quick way of working?
Do you see more of these loops in your organization that you would like to break? Draw more of them; this will undoubtedly give you new insights!
