By Brenda Christie
One of my consultants recently used an expression I found amusing. It actually reminded me of a project management activity -- scheduling.
The illustration he gave me to reinforce the expression was what some managers do when a project falls behind schedule. The illustration is: several people are on a covered wagon being pulled by horses. They want the horses to move faster, so they load up the wagon with more people so there are more people to beat the horses.
I'm sure you've been on a least one project where this happened. Instead of running several tasks in parallel to save time, or bringing in more experienced resources, negotiating with stakeholders to defer a task to a later time, etc., more resources are thrown at the project.
This can be risky unless there is a good communication plan to ensure all team members are aware of where each one is on the project. This risk is somewhat minimized provided there is also a good quality assurance component to the project, as well as strong change management. Throwing more resources to stay on schedule also has the tendency to increase the project budget.
I think it's a great analogy -- one which I'll remember for a very long time.
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