The Secret of Comedy (and Project Management)

One: Do you want to know the secret of comedy is?

Two: Yes, I do want to know what the secret of comedy is.

One: OK, I want you to stand there, opposite me and ask me in a strong, loud voice "What is the secret of comedy."

Two: What? Now?

One: Yes, now.

Two: OK, here goes. Are you ready?

One: Ready.

Two: Sure?

One: Certain.

Two: And what is it I say again?

One: [Through gritted teeth] What is the secret of comedy.

Two: OK, OK, secret of comedy. Got it.

One: All right then.

Two: All right then. [pause] What is the....

One: TIMING!

A friend of mine won a contract to build a website for a Mainstream Media (MSM) company. He thought things were going well. They had some kind of spec in place (this wasn't an Agile project). There'd been meetings the MSM guys had seem casual and relaxed. They didn't seem too bothered about contracts. My friend got the impression that this project was being done "under the radar" of normal corporate procedures. He was a bit surprised. He'd heard bad things about this company, maybe they were wrong, maybe he got lucky. They were just approaching two weeks before the site went live and everything looked to be going smoothly.

Then the telephone calls started. We've decided that we need all this extra stuff, by the end of the week. What about this? What about that? We can't host it in this country, we have to host it in this other country for legal reasons. Talk to our lawyers, they'll explain what they're going to do to you if you host it in the wrong country. What do you mean that's going to take an extra week? It can't take an extra week. Then the contracts started arriving. Extra clauses saying that the developer would bear the costs of any extra work, hidden on page 237 of a 400 page contract. Suddenly, when they turned up to meetings, there were five times as many people turning up from the MSM company's side and most of them seemed to be lawyers. And they weren't nice people. If my friend didn't do exactly what they told him, if he didn't sign the contract, they made it clear, he'd be out of business.

My friend, did what he could. Bravely, he refused to sign a contract he didn't have time to read. He agreed some kind of halfway house with the hosting, his loyal developers pulled several all-nighters to do all the changes that were required. They got something out for the deadline.

The first rule of comedy - timing

The next time I saw him I was expecting more tales of lawyers contracts, unexpected changes. But when I asked him about the project he just shrugged. "They seem to have lost interest."
"What?"
"That's how they work. They get all worked up before a release date, and they lose interest. They're straight on to the next thing. They're not worried about you any more. We've been to a few meetings, they're relaxed, just like they were three or four weeks before the deadline."
"Did you sign their contract?"
"No."
"Did they pay you?"
"Yes."

When I run my Introduction to Agile course over more than one day, (for example, the Managing Digital Projects Course) I start the second day with a discussion of negotiations and difficult conversations. One of the things that I recommend you try to do is to move from adopting a negotiation position to discovering value, to move from "message delivery" to a learning conversation. And I think one of the most important things for each side in a potential "difficult conversation" to learn about each other is their expectations of timing and time-scales.

For further information, contact Mark@agilelab.co.uk (07736 807 604)

Timing - Time Lines

I remember walking back to Fife Park (I think now, thankfully demolished) when I was a Philosophy student in St Andrews and looking at people on the street and thinking "I bet those bastards think time's unproblematic." I'd been reading "McTaggart on the unreality of time." And it had seriously disconcerted me.

And I've been reading about time again just recently, with similarly disconcerting effects. I know this would be something that David Allen, a veteran new-ager (if there can be such a thing) would describe as Wah Wah Woo Woo stuff, but I've been reading about Time Lines and I can't but think that it's very relevant to project management, and to the difficult business of persuading people that Agile is a very useful approach to project management.

OK - just as a bit of fun. Sit down. Feet on the floor, arms are your side. Relax. Think of an event that happened in your past. OK, now can you tell me where this event is? Can you point to it? Right, now arms by your side again - think about something that's going to happen in your future? Where is that? Can you point to it. Try this with other people that you work with, try it with your friends, your spouse. Do they all see things the say way as you do? No? Interesting huh?

The basic finding seems to be that some people "see time" when they think of it, in front of them as a series. Very often running from left (the past) to right the (future). The present is just another slot in the series. Some other people experience time as something that they are in, with the past somewhere behind them and the future somewhere in front of them (that's me).


The road ahead - this is something like what I see (actually turning off to the right) the past is behind me, where it's hard to see.


Some kind of timeline - this is what I think many other people see - and many project managers (click for bigger picture).


I suspect the truth of the matter is that both perspectives are required (otherwise, why are they both so prevalent) and that managing projects effectively means knowing how and when to flip between the two (or maintain both views at the same time). I suspect a lot of project management problems come from being stuck in the wrong view, or insisting on only one view.

What do you think? Let me know, either via mail or in the comments.

For further information, contact Mark@agilelab.co.uk (07736 807 604)