PROJECT MANAGEMENT

We are doomed Have you ever been in a difficult project status meeting where somebody says ‘we are doomed’? I can remember many meetings where it has been said. I have said it myself. I have often wondered why we use the expression so frequently, and what we really mean by it. In this article I want to explore the meaning of ‘we are doomed’ in the context of a technical project.

by Neil Morris

We are doomed ENGINEERING MANAGEMENT JOURNAL OCTOBER 1998

What happens before we say that we are doomed?

or some time we have been worried about the project that we are working on, but F we have not necessarily been able to put

this into words. All the problems seem to be soluble, if only we had enough time to tackle them all. There is still a hope that with a really concerted effort we can just make it.

Then there comes a day when we realise just how bad things are, and that there really is no way out. This is often in a project meeting. There is a silence and somebody has to say something to fill it: ‘We are doomed’.

Why do we say that we are doomed? The expression has been used in fiction to

highlight situations, often in a comical way. Do you remember Private Frazer in ‘Dad’s Army’ who used the expression as his catchphrase? He had a strong Scottish accent-and you may notice that people often adopt that accent when saying that they are doomed. It was also a phrase used in many other television and cinema situations (Blackadder, Star Wars etc.).

The words actually sound quite pleasant, and have a positive, even uplifting air. The long ‘00’

vowel sound is often exaggerated ... ‘we are doooooomed‘. Here we are using humour to relieve the tension of a difficult moment. The popular management rationale is that humour is a useful mechanism for reducing conflict in teamwork situations; however, my view is that the main argument for the use of humour is that it is funny.

What happens after we say that we are doomed?

Saying that we are doomed indicates an acceptance that we cannot do anything about it. On first reflection this seems like a totally negative reaction. However, the very sense of hopelessness is a base on which new hope can be built. There are well-known psychological techniques for breaking someone down, then building them back up again. The ‘we are doomed’ statement is the first step in a form of group therapy, where we realise and accept that we have an apparently insurmountable problem: and from that lowest possible point of despair, the only way to go is up.

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These daily reports not only cover the cracks in my walls-

Dimensions of doom There are other variations on the phrase ‘we

are doomed’ that I would now like to examine:

they also cover the cracks in my management abilities!

(ij This project is doomed What we do when the project is doomed is to

redefine the project. Here are some examples:

0 The schedule cannot be met. So, we will have to redefine (delay) the schedule.

0 The project ‘deliverable’ is doomed; the end product or service can never meet the requirements. So we will have to change the requirements, often by reducing the scope. This simplifies the task, and can eliminate a number of known problems.

0 An unexpected technical problem has arisen. This almost always happens in technology development projects, so the project manager should budget some time for it. The problem will arise (the symptom), has to be under- stood properly (characterised) then a solution found (a fix). The solution will often be ingenious and may be patentable. In many projects, the only true innovation occurs in response to an unexpected problem.

The project plan did not cater for an un- expected event. A force m u j e w e (earthquake, building destroyed by fire, stockmarket crash, change of government, sudden departure of key team member). This is one of the best reasons, because we have an excuse. Another competing project will be better than this project (delivered sooner, at a better cost, is preferred because it is someone’s hidden agenda); see ‘I am doomed’. We are over budget. Situation normal-no action required.

(iij This teum is doomed This is where the responsibility for the

perceived problem is clearly shared. The individual feels protected by the team environ- ment, but now that doom is acknowledged, the team may not be able to survive as an entity much longer.

One outcome may be that the team is to be disbanded. The individuals may well survive to join another team, or may be labelled ‘not a team-player’ and then be put in solitary confinement for a period of time.

Another outcome is where the team receives help. The grim helper arrives from head office to ‘sort out this mess’. The grim helper is a figure to be feared as he or she may stay and cause misery for weeks and weeks. This is not to be confused with the grim auditor who can inflict exactly the required amount of pain in a few short days.

Slightly worse than the arrival of a grim helper is remote help. In this cruel scenario the helper is an executive in another continent and another time zone (often apparently on another planet). The helper will require very frequent status reports so that he or she is then able to provide continuous criticism.

The more frequently we report status to the grim or remote helper, the worse things seem. Consider status reporting on a project that is planned to take six months. A monthly status report will demonstrate progress and will highlight any fundamental technical problems that might cause the project to overrun. Contrast this with daily status reporting where a new technical problem is reported on Tuesday morning, and remains insurmountable until Thursday afternoon when a team member comes up with the solution. For two days the project appears to the executive to be completely doomed and is therefore cancelled on Wednesday evening. That would not have

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happened if the status reporting period had been more appropriate. If status reports are too frequent then the impression of the project will swing wildly between good and bad, as problems are encountered and solved. A longer status reporting interval allows the impression of the project to be integrated over time and represents a more accurate picture of the project’s long-term trends and therefore of the probability of success.

The grim or remote helper will have been instructed by higher management to report on what has gone wrong. The helper will act as an information conduit (filter). It is not in the interests of the helper to report the good things about the project, as he or she has specifically been asked to report on the bad things. Also, the helper will want to further their own career aims and will want to represent the facts as if it is only since the arrival of the helper that the true problem has been identified and an action plan (panic) has been started.

(iii) I a m doomed Consider the doomed individual, alone with

their thoughts: ‘I am doomed’; ‘Do I need to start looking for a new job?’; ‘Is this the end of my promotion prospects?’; ‘My career just ended’. Of course this may be just the right opportunity to progress, to look for a new job which is less doomed. The acceptance of your plight is the catalyst that may lead to change and personal development.

The result is very different when the phrase is said aloud to another person. Just saying ‘I am doomed’ to someone else takes some of the weight from your shoulders. A problem shared is a problem halved, obviously.

Contractors are less likely to feel doomed than permanent employees. The contractor’s future is not as strongly linked to the success of the project or to the future of the organisation. A permanent employee who works for a really bad company is forced to work on their terms. However, a contractor working for the same company will be working much more on his/ her own terms and is much more likely to see their future as something that is outside the company.

a

engineering profession). I was once advised to get out of the electronics profession on the grounds that the technology was changing so quickly that nobody would be able to keep up with it! If you think that you are in a doomed profession, you still have choices. You could:

stay in the profession get out of the profession change your place within the profession.

One excellent way to change your place within the profession is to change your level of special- isation. The increase in the number of engineers who are specialists has created a need for a new

(iv) W e are all doomed ‘We are all doomed’ is quite different from

‘we are doomed’. Just who are ‘we all’?This may refer to the wider organisation (e.g. this company, this university, this nation) or to the wider skill group (the electronics industry, the

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Fig. 1 Cycle of doom

breed of generalists. A generalist can see the linkages and relationships between the different pieces of a technical project, and can be asked to tackle difficult problems when they arise. A doomed project may just be in need of a little attention from an engineering or management all-rounder.

Impending doom You will be familiar with the term ‘impend-

ing doom’. I view that as one of a class of different time-variant perceptions of doom. There is a cycle of doom, that can be represented as shown in Fig. I . So if your project is O K (on schedule, on budget and with no known serious technical problems) you might do best to report your status as ‘currently not doomed’.

Doom and death The concept of doom figures in many

religions, and was also important in early pagan cultures. The idea of an afterlife, and therefore

of heaven and hell, figures in Christian theology and other modern religions. To be doomed is to go to hell, or perhaps to be reincarnated as a lowly animal (slug) or person (estate agent). But there is always a potential positive alternative outcome, to go to heaven, or to be reincarnated as someone that we would really like to be (top athlete, astronaut, pop star).

A project can also die, only to be reborn. Have you ever worked on project Phoenix, the one that rose from the ashes of project Dodo?

Conclusions So, saying ‘we are doomed’ is the right thing

to do. It provokes discussion. A group of people can then either resolve the problem, or at least work together in a damage-limitation exercise. If you pluck up courage and tell your boss the terrible truth, it may just turn out that he or she is the very generalist that you needed to help you solve the problem.

Acknowledgments Thanks to Peter Whitehead, Nick Papani-

colaou and Sharon Prince for contributing ideas towards this article.

References 1 ADAMS, S.: ‘The Dibert principle’ (Harper

2 KIDDER, T.: ‘The soul of a new machine’ (Little, Collins, New York, USA, 1996)

Brown & Co., Boston, USA, 1981)

0 IEE: 1998 Neil Morris i s a member of the IEE Management Division Professional Group Committee M2 (Engineering and Society). He is an IEE Member.

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