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Back of an envelope

Welcome to On a Back of an Envelope – an alternative view on Project Management. Here you will find a mix of humour, commentary and project management information that will both inform and entertain.

  • The Highlight Report is our section of commentaries on current project management practice and projects in the news.
  • Hall of Fame is where we honour individuals both real and fictional who have added to our understanding of Project Management or have offered an insight into the way the project world works.
  • Humour contains the lighter side of project management.
  • OBOEOn a Back Of an Envelope our glossary of project management terms.

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James of St. George, 1230-1308

James of St. George
James of St. George

Employed by Edward I in the late 13th century as Master of the Kings Works in Wales, James of St. George was the architect and master builder of ten monumental castles in Wales. A 21st century visitor visiting these castles today cannot fail to be impressed by the epic scale of the walls and towers and one can only imagine the effect that these buildings would have had on medieval minds.

James’s skills were not only in the design and build of these castles but in organising men and materiel in an environment where transportation was primitive and the locals were distinctly hostile. His final project was the building of the castle at Beaumaris on the island of Anglesey in Wales. It was designed on his principle of ‘walls within walls’ and unlike some of his other castles did not have any constraints of geography or existing cities to spoil what was envisioned as a perfect fortress.

However, almost from the beginning work on the castle was troubled with financial difficulties and when Edward 1 went to war in Scotland, work all but stopped. £15,000 had been spent on Beaumaris when money ran out in 1298 and James wrote to Edward’s treasurers pleading for additional money. In what must be one of the first ever written examples of an Exception Report, James sent a letter to Edward’s treasurers explaining how the money had been used and why further expenditure was necessary.

“…we write to inform you that the work we are doing is very costly and we need a great deal of money. You should know… that we have kept on masons, stone cutters, quarrymen, and minor workmen all through the winter, and are still employing them, for making mortar and breaking up stone for lime; we have had costs bringing this stone to the site and bringing timber for erecting the buildings in which we are all now living instead of the castle; we also have 1000 carpenters, smiths, plasterers and navvies, quite apart from a mounted garrison of 10 men… , 20 crossbowmen… , and 100 infantry….”

He continued to explain to his paymasters the ongoing project burn which made his request for additional funds so urgent.

“In case you should wonder where so much money could go in a week, we would have you know that we have needed – and shall continue to need – 400 masons, both cutters and layers, together with 2000 minor workmen, 100 carts, 60 wagons and 30 boats bringing stone and sea coal; 200 quarrymen; 30 smiths; and carpenters for putting in the joists and floorboards and other necessary jobs. All this takes no account of the garrison mentioned above, nor of the purchase of material, of which there will have to be a great quantity… The men’s pay has been and still is very much in arrears, and we are having the greatest difficulty in keeping them because they simply have nothing to live on.”

And in a postscript which will resonate with project managers even after 800 years…

And, Sirs, for God’s sake be quick with the money for the works, as much as ever our lord the king wills; otherwise everything done up till now will have been to no avail.

Substitute ‘our lord the king’ with Project Sponsor or Senior Responsible Officer and this could be the heartfelt plea added to every request for additional project funds remembering to credit James of St. George 1298.

James received his funding but financial troubles dogged construction and although work continued for almost 35 years the castle was never finished.

Fred Brooks, 1931-2022

Fred Brooks
Fred Brooks

Fred Brooks was a distinguished American computer architect, software engineer and computer scientist whose major career achievement was managing the development of IBM’s System/360 family of computers and its OS/360 system software. The experiences gained inspired him to write The Mythical Man-Month – an essential read for every aspiring project manager. Its central theme is that adding manpower to a software project that is behind schedule delays it even longer. He goes on to say that the hypothetical unit of work done by one person in one month is a myth and this is often quoted as Brooks’ Law.

Adding manpower to a late software project makes it later.

He pointed out that complex software programming projects often cannot be divided into smaller discrete tasks that can be worked on by individuals without establishing complex communication between them. Indeed, some tasks cannot be subdivided at all and have an inherent duration that cannot be significantly reduced by increasing the number of people working on them. He summed this up thus:

Nine women can’t make a baby in one month.

In his book he also posed the question, How does a large software project get to be one year late? The answer is “One day at a time!”. Incremental slippages eventually accumulate to produce large overall delays and so attention to meeting small individual milestones is needed during all aspects of any project.

Whilst many of his other observations are more applicable to the specialist tasks around IT systems development the takeaways for us are:

  1. Throwing resources at a project that is falling behind will not always deliver the outcomes you desire. Onboarding and training new resources takes time and managing larger teams generates its own complexities.
  2. Some tasks cannot be completed more quickly however much effort is applied.
  3. There should be no surprises when someone announces that a project is significantly behind schedule. A project that is a year late has had 365 opportunities for remedial actions to be taken.

Sir Robert Watson-Watt, 1892-1973

Sir Robert Watson-Watt
Sir Robert Watson-Watt

Sir Robert Watson-Watt was a British scientist and a pioneer of radar technology in the lead up to the Second World War. Often mistakenly referred to as the inventor of radar he took what was an embryo technology to create a practical system to detect aircraft. This became the Chain Home network of radar stations which ran along the length of Britain’s east coast and was an important part of the country’s air defence contributing to the RAF’s 1940 victory in the Battle of Britain.

A notable aspect of his character was his pragmatism – he was a realist and he rejoiced in what he termed ‘the cult of the imperfect’. His view when delivering to his government and military masters was:

Give them the third best to go on with; the second best comes too late; the best never comes

These days we might use the more succinct aphorism, ‘Perfect is the enemy of good’.

The adoption of Agile development within project management is often thought of as a modern invention following the publishing of the Agile Manifesto in 2001 but Watson-Watt’s approach shows us that he fully understood Agile principles even if he wouldn’t have labelled them as such.

He and his team would create a prototype to produce what we would describe as a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) – a version of the product with just enough features to be usable by early customers who can then provide feedback for future development. An MVP will create a product with minimal resources quickly to gain early feedback reducing wasted effort, accelerate learning and gain customer/user engagement. The first successful demonstration of aircraft detection by radio waves bouncing off them was on the 26th February 1935 by Watson-Watt and Arnold Wilkins in a remote field in rural Northamptonshire using a very ‘Heath Robinson’ setup and where there is now a memorial plaque.

At the end of the war, Professor E.V. Appleton made a submission to the Royal Commission on Awards to Inventors and said of Watson-Watt’s contribution to the development of radar, ‘…the biggest effort of all was being made by Watson-Watt in pleading, advocating, getting stores, masts and buildings. It was above all due to his drive and powerful advocacy that we had radar stations around our coast when war broke out… He had the vision of what it all implied, he just burned with it. [He] deserves a very substantial reward for his work in turning scientific radar into practical radar…

Today, we would recognise these qualities in every successful project manager.

Customer Journey

Old Lady
Old Lady

An old lady walked into the bank, handed her bank card to the teller and said “I would like to withdraw £10”.

The teller told her “For withdrawals less than £100, please use the ATM”.

The old lady wanted to know why… The teller returned her bank card and irritably told her “These are the rules, please leave if there is no further matter. There is a line of customers behind you.”

The old lady remained silent for a few seconds and handed her card back to the teller and said “Please help me withdraw all the money I have”. The teller was astonished when she checked the account balance. She nodded her head, leaned down and respectfully told her “You have £1,300,000 in your account but the bank doesn’t have that much cash currently. Could you make an appointment and come back again tomorrow?”

The old lady then asked how much she could withdraw immediately. The teller told her any amount up to £3000. “Well please let me have £3000 now.” The teller kindly handed £3000 to her with a polite smile.

The old lady put £10 in her purse and asked the teller to deposit £2,990 back into her account.

Project Managers should never underestimate how users of the services we implement are wedded to familiar ways and see change as an inconvenience to be circumvented rather than an improvement. A poorly sited path which gets ignored in favour of walking a more direct across a grass lawn would be another simple example. Trialling a service or process with real users prior to implementation, the use of prototypes and encouraging opportunities for fast feedback (all part of an Agile mindset) will prevent many of these ‘own goals’.