No Projects - Beyond Projects

[Hans-Peter Korn]

Since a couple of years I hear more and more voices doubting that projects are a very useful way of work in many situations.

One of this voices is Allan Kelly. He says: 

Using the language, terminology and mindset of projects to discuss something that is inherently not a project creates conflict, confusion, short-termism and sets inconsistent goals. Controlling these conflicts requires manager intervention. The two models conflict and increasingly create problems.

When project thinking is to the fore the emphasis on project delivery has the unfortunate effect of obscuring the true goals - so called goal displacement. Teams and managers should focus on benefit delivery and value generation but under the project model instead focus on time, budget and requirement goals.

These chronic problems have existed for years but modern trends in software development are making project thinking more dangerous still. The large batch size nature of projects is increasingly in conflict with continuous delivery, hypothesis testing and small batch releases. This conflict increases risk and reduces benefits.

More you can find here: http://www.infoq.com/articles/kelly-beyond-projects