Have you ever wondered why, no matter what you do, some projects fluctuate beyond the normal variance? You work hard to meticulously manage the project, but the more you try to control it the harder it gets?
What you have is a problem managing the DANCE—the Dynamic and changing, Ambiguous and uncertain, Non-linear and unpredictable, Complex and Emergent nature of projects that causes instability.
In these cases, your project environment is dynamic and constantly changing, driven by factors like a turbulent economy
, market forces or shifting stakeholder needs. There is ambiguity and uncertainty, it is not clear who all of the stakeholders are, and the ones you can identify are indecisive—they do not know what they want. The project direction is not clear and there is a lot of uncertainty about the future.
Plans based on sequential tasks and dependencies do not seem to hold in a non-linear changing and unpredictable project reality. The project is complicated due to a combination of factors like complexity of scope, sheer number of linkages and dependencies or the multiplicity of stakeholders involved. Project scope, requirements and solutions are emergent in nature and are hard to pin down and plan for in a continually shifting landscape
If your project shows signs of one or more of these characteristics, you have to learn to manage the DANCE.
But how do you do it?
The first step is to recognize when you have the DANCE elements in your project. Instead of getting frustrated, you have to learn to accept the reality. Understand the limitations of the traditional approach in managing and controlling unpredictable changes.
To manage the unexpected, an organic approach is required. You have to cultivate skills to sense, respond, adapt and adjust (SRAA). Sensing skills help to develop acute awareness and vigilance to anticipate unexpected changes. Response prepares you to view the unique situation and respond accordingly in that moment. Adaptation helps you to quickly adjust to new realities and alter the plan to accommodate the changes.
For example, you can plan, but don’t get comfortable with it. Continue to ask penetrating questions and challenge the assumptions throughout the project lifecycle. Plans should be fluid and enabling, not rigid and confining. Rigid plans in a DANCE environment can create blind spots that prevent you from seeing the unfolding project reality. Fluid plans enable you to sense and be open to emerging stakeholder needs and respond to unexpected changes.
SRAA cannot replace traditional scope, plan, execute and control processes, in addition to good risk and change management practices. But when used in conjunction with those techniques, SRAA is instrumental in helping you manage the DANCE.
When you are in the middle of your project, frustrated with unexpected fluctuations, you have to sometimes step back from the dance floor to see the big picture, recognize the DANCE and manage its impact in your project environment.
It’s not easy to manage the DANCE—it takes a lot of patience and experience. With practice, though, you can realize that the norm for project managers in these situations is to get comfortable being uncomfortable with the DANCE!
This feature is a preview of the paper, Managing the Dance – The Pursuit of Next Generation PM Tools, being presented by Mr. Duggal at the upcoming PMI Global® Congress 2009—North America in Orlando. His paper, and all of the other papers from the congress, will be available on PMI Marketplace in late 2009.
Mr. Duggal is the managing principal of Projectize Group LLC, specializing in next generation training, consulting and tools, and a PMI SeminarsWorld® leader of the seminar Building a Next Generation PMO and Portfolio Management. For questions on the content of the seminar, or your comments and feedback, please contact This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .
This article also published in PMI's COMMUNITY POST (Sept 2009).